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About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at |http: //books .google .com/I I If- THREE ESSAYS ON THE POWERS OF REPRODUCTION. Fronti':f>ie(e. Slpjjrotiistacs anb Slntt^apljrolitsiacB; THREE ESSAYS ON THE POWERS OF REPRODUCTION i WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE JUDICIAL "CONGRESS" AS PRACTISED IN FRANCE DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Bv JOHN DAVENPORT. UH tlimului, ihi fiuxtis. — HippocraTKS. LONDON : PRIVATELY PRINTED. 1869. PREFACE. JHE reproductive powers of Nature were regarded by the nations of remote antiquity with an awe and reverence so great, as to form an object of worship, under a symbol, of all others the most significant, — the Phallus; and thus was founded a religion, of which the traces exist to this day, not in Asia only, but even in Europe itself. That scarcely any notices of this worship should appear in modem works, except in the erudite pages of a few antiquarians may be accounted for by considering the difference of opinion between the ancients and the modems as to what constitutes — modesty ; the former being unable to see any moral turpitude / in actions they regarded as the designs of nature, while the latter, by their over-strained notions of delicacy, ren ier them- selves, in some degree at least, obnoxious to the charge that, in vi proportion as manners becomes corrupt, language becomes more guarded, — modesty, when banished from the heart, taking refuge on the lips. To supply, to some extent, this lacuna in our popular litera- ture has been the object of the present work, in which, it is hoped, may be found much curious and interesting physiological information, interspersed with recherchi and f esti vous anecdotes. The text is illustrated by a few plates^ drawn from antiquarian sources. J. D. ^^^^^H^^H ^^I^I^^^^^I^H^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^B ^^^^^^^^^1 RM^^ J LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. ^^^H NoTK.—^j it was found mpesiiiU always to inieri Ihe itlusira/ioni oppodU ^^^^k the fxf'lmalory Itxl, Ike JoUowing Liil will assist the redder to these ^^^^k pages which explain the objects represented : — ^^^^| riale DcKribed on page ^^^^| Frontispiece, Inscribed Votivk Columns Facing title ^^^H or smsll sizf and of gicat auliquitr ; in use amonest ^^^^| I. Figure 1, Egvptian Phallus . . i. 2, 3 ^^^| FlDm " Rccucil d'An[iquil& Egycliennes, Sic, par ^^^^H le Comic df Caylus."^ ^^^1 „ 3, SO., difTerent view . . 1, 2, 3 ^^^| „ 3, Two views of a double figure 1. 2, 3 ^^H 4, Rohan Priapus over a baker's door at Pompeii i 1 ^^H From " Mu' i.- ifctel dc Napki." ^^^M II. f 3| 3 ^^^H From M. ISonncrat'i " Voyage aux lodes Oricntales." ^^^^| 2, Pan's Head . 9, 10 ^^^| From the Colleclion of Antiquities af Pompeii, vide ^^^M " Musie secret de Naples." ^^H in. Figure ' 1. Leaden Phallus S ^^^| From the " Forgcais CoUeclLon o( Plombs Hisloriqucs." ^^^H „ 2, Dirro, a different view , . . . 5 ^^^^| „ DITTO .... ^^^H 4, DITTO ditto .... S ^^^M Vlll Plate Described on page IV. Figure I, Round Towkr . . . • S» 6, 7 From O'Brien's " History of the Round Towers of Ireland." „ 2, Thrkk-hkadkd Osiris . . 7, 8, 9 From the Comte de Caylus' '* Recueil d'Antiquit^s Egyptiennes," &c. V. Figure I, Cross . . . 12, 13, 14 From Higgin's *' Anacalypsis," „ 2, Another example . , . 12^ 13, 14 From the same work. „ 3, Another example . . . 12, 13, 14 From the same work. ,y 4, Another example . . . . 12, 13, 14 From the same work, VI. Figure i, Ex voto, in silver . . . 18, 19, 20 From the British Musemn copy of R. Payne Knight's " History of the Worship of Priapus." „ 2, DuDAiH or Mandrake . 67, 70, 71, 74 From Dr. KiUo's *' Cyclopsedia of Biblical Literature." VII. Figure i, Fibula . . . . 142, 3 From Holyday*s " Juvenal.** „ 2, Another example of a di£Ferent construction . 142, 3 CO NTE NTS. aiNClENT Phallic Worship; Phallic Worship the most ancient and general Phallic Worship found to exist in America Indian Trimourti or Trinity Lingham ..... Yoni or Cteis, and PuUeiar . Taly, Anecdote of the Leaden Phalli found in the river Rhone Round Towers in Ireland — Phallic temples . The May-Pole a relic of phallic worship Phallus held in reverence by the Jews — King David . Le prerogativi de' Testicoli (note) An Egyptian Phallic Oath Ancient Welsh Phallic Law . London Costermongers' Oath, " By my taters " Bembo (Cardinal), his saying (note) . Priapus, derivation of the word Priapus, how reverenced by Roman women . Priapus, decline of his worship The Cross CY) known to the Buddhists and the Lama of Thibet Cross (the) regarded by the Ancients as the emblem of fruitfulness . Rev. Mr. Maurice quoted Page, ^^^^^■^ The Tau, Crux-Ansata, or triple Phallus >4 ^^M ^^^^^H Remains of Phallic Worship in Europe , ^^H ^^^^^^ Lampsacus, the Birth-place of the deity Priapus (note). ^^1 ^^^^^^H Saint Fouiin ...... ^^H ^^^^^K The Phallus of Foutin at Embnin— the holy vinegar . i6 ^H ^^^^^^1 Curious Phallic Customs .... 16-17 ^M ^^^^^^1 Godfrey de Bouillon and the Holy prepuce ig ^H ^^^^^^1 santo-membro ...... ^H ^^^^^^B Sir W. Hamilton's account of the Worship paid to Saints Cosmc ^^M ^^^^^H and Damianus ...... ^^1 ^^^^^^ volos ....... is ^H ^^^^^^1 ESSAY -fl ^F Anaphrodisia, or Absence op thk PRonucnva Power : V ^^L Impotency, three kinds of, according; to the Canon Law 21 ^^^ ^^^^^■^ Impotency, Causes of, proper to Man ^^H ^^^^^^B Impotency, Causes of, proper to Women ^^H ^^^^H Sterility and its Causes ^^H ^^^^^^1 Morg'agni quoted ..... ^^1 ^^^^^^1 Clitoris, its length sometimes prevents the sexual union — cas ^^1 ^^^^^^1 quoted by Sir Everard Home ^B ^^^^^^1 Columbus, Martial, Haller, Juvenal, and Ariosto quoted — 26 ^^1 ^^^^^^H Impotency, Moral Causes of , 2S— 29 ^H ^^^^^^H Montaigne's Advice ..... 32 ^B ^^^^^^1 Impotency caused by too great warmth of Clothing — Hunter' ^^^1 33 ^M ^^^^^1 Point-Tying— Voltaire's Pucelle d'Orlcans quoted 35 ^M ^^^^^^V Point-Tying known to the Ancients — instances quoted . 37-38 ^1 ^^^^^H Point- Tying among the Moderns recognised by James I. 40 n ^^^^^H Counter-Charm to Point-Tying .... 4' ^^^^^H^ Agreeable Mode of curing such Enchantment . 42 I ^^^^^1 Case of Point- Tying related by Venette 43 m ^^^^^H Montaigne's curious Story .... 44 ■ ^^^^^^^^^ Judicial Congress in Cases of alleged Impotency J Page. Manner of conducting the Congress . . , . 4S Judicial Congress originated with the Church ... 52 Judicial Congress practised in France during the [6th and 17th Centuries — Forbidden in 1677 ... - ,, Boileau quoted ..... . , 55 — 56 Cases determined by the Judicial Congress - . 54 — 58 Willick, Dr., his Remarks and Advice upon the Sexual Inter- course ....... 58—63 Aphbodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs: The Mandrake or Dudaim the most ancient aphrodisiac Rachel and Leah ..... Solomon's Song ...... Pliny the Elder quoted ...... Sappho's love for Phaon accounted for . Superstitious ideas respecting the mandrake during the Middle Ages The Knights Templars accused of adoring it . Mandrake, Weir's description of ic , Mandrake under the name of Mandragora used as a charm Macchiavelh's Comedy of La Mandragora and Voltaire's account of it . Love potions, Venetian law against ihem Richard III. accuses Lady Grey of witchcraft . Maundrell's account of the Dudaim Singular Aphrodisiac used by the Amazons Philters, or love potions used by the ancients . Hippomanes, wonderful powers of, as an aphrodisiac Recipes for love-potions Fish an aphrodisiac—Hecquet's anecdote Mollusca, iruffles and mushrooms used as aphrodisiacal George IV. 's appreciation of truffles (note) Effect of truffles described by a lady . 66 67 Xll Latin epigram on the vices of the monks Naiveti of a monk on the score of adultery Curious Quatrain in the Church of St. Hyacinth Madame Du Barri*s secret Do., Do., description of (note) Tablettes de Magnanimitb — Poudre de joie — Seraglio Pastilles Musk, Cantharides— effects of the latter Cardinal Dubois* Account of a Love-Potion Caricature upon Dubois (note) . Indian Bang ..... Stimulating Powers of Odours . Cabanis quoted ..... D'Obsonville quoted .... Portable Grold — Shakespeare quoted Bouchard's Account of Aphrodisiacal Charms . Flagellation — Graham's (Celestial Bed — Lady Hamilton Nelson, &c. . Burton quoted ... Page. 90 9« 93 9» 94 96 98 99 09 — no III — Lord 121 — 126 126 Anti-Aphrodisiacs : Refrigerants — Recommendation of Plato and Aristotle Sir Thos. Brown quoted ..... Origen ....... Camphor an anti-aphrodisiac .... 0)ffee an anti-aphrodisiac — Abemethey's saying (note) Infibulation, Holyday quoted .... Bemasco Padlocks ..... Voltaire's poem of the Cadenas Rabelais' anti-aphrodisiacal remedies • 128-* 129 130 99 104 137 144 144 146 147—154 141— BROM the investigations and researches of the learned, there appears to be no doubt but that the most ancient of ail superstitions was that in which Nature was con- templated chiefly under the attribute or property of fecundity ; the symbols of the reproductive power being those under which its prolific potencies were exhibited. It is not because modern fastidiousness affects to consider those symbols as indecent, and even obscene, that we should therefore suppose them to have been so regarded by the ancients : on the contrary, the view of them awakened no impure ideas in the minds of the latter, being re- garded by them as the most sacred objects of worship. The ancients, indeed, did not look upon the pleasures of love with the same eye as the moderns do : the tender union of the sexes ex- cited their veneration, because religion apjjeared to consecrate it, inasmuch as their mythology presented to them all Olympus as^ more occupied with amatory delights than with the government of the universe. The reflecting men of those times, more simple, but, it must be 2 ANCIENT PHALLIC WORSHIP. confessed, more profound, than those of our own day, could not see ' any moral turpitude in actions regarded by them as the design of nature, and as the acme of felicity. For this reason it is that we find not only ancient writers expressing tliemselves freely upon subjects regarded by us as indecent, but even sculptors and painters equally unrestrained in this particular. The statesman took advantage of these religious impressions : whatever tended to increase population being held in honour. Those images and Priapi so frequently found in the temples of the ancients, and even in their houses, and which we consider as objects of indecent lewdness, were, in their eyes, but so many sacred motives exciting them to propagate their sf ecies. !In order to represent by a physical object the reproductive power of the sun In spring-time, as well as the action of that power on all sentient beings, the ancients adopted that symbol of the male gender which the Greeks, who derive it from the Egyptians, called — Phallus.* This worship was so general as to have spread itself over a large portion of the habitable globe, for it flourished for many ages in Egypt and Syria, Persia, Asia Minor, Greece and Italy ; it was, and still is, in vigour in India and many parts of Africa, and was even found in America on its discovery by the Spaniards. Thus Garcilaso de la Vega Informs us f that, in the public squares of Panuco (a Mexican town), bos- • For a representation of the Egyptian " Phallus " see Plate I., figures i, a, and 3. These are taken from the " Hicueii d'AntiqviUs EgypHenms " by the Comie De Caylus, who, speaking of the first of them, observes : " Cetce figure represente le plus terrible Phallus qu'on ait v6, proportion gard^e, sur aucun ouvrage. On n'ignore point la veneration que les Egyptiens avaient pour cet embl^me, il est vrai; mais jedoute que cette nation sage et peu outrfe dan^ sa conduite eut consacre dans les premiers siccles, c'est a dire, avant le rdgne des Piolemees, une pareille fig'ure." t Historia de los Incas. Cap. VI, /. SYMBOLS OP REPRODUCTION. 3 reliefs were found which, like those of India, represented, in various ways the sexual union ; while at Tlascala, another town of that country, the reproductive act was worshipped under the joint symbol of the generative organs, male and female. A more surprising tact is, that this worship has, as will be shewn hereafter, been perpetuated to a very late date, among the Christians of Europe. In its origin, the Phallus or emblem of the generative and pro- creative powers of nature appears to have been of a very simple and inoffensive character — although it was afterwards made sub- servient to the grossest and most superstitious purposes, In India this worship is everywhere to be found accompanying the triune God, called by the Hindoos, Trimourtior TrinityiZX\A thesignificant form of the single obelisk or pillar called xSx'C: Linga or Lingham ;* and it should be observed, in justice to the Hindoos that it is some comparative and negative praise to them, that this emblem, under which they express the elements and opera- tions of nature is not externally indecorous. Unlike the abomin- able realities of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, we see this Indian phallic emblem in the Hindoo religious exhibitions, without offence, nor know, until information be extorted, that we are contemplating a symbol whose prototype is obscene. f • In the church of Si. Peter's at Rome, is kept, en iurel, a large stone emblem of the creative power, of a very peculiar shape, on which are engraved Zcw IvTjfp. Only persons who have great interest can get a sight of it. Is it from this stone having some peculiar virtue that those prtux chevaliers, the cardinals, keep it so closely? Perhaps they choose to monopolize the use of it ? I never saw it, but 1 know that it was at St. Peter's. — Higgiss. + See Hate II., figure 1. This figure of the Lingham presents a kind of Trinity, the vase represents Vishnu, from the middle of which rises a column rounded at the top representing Siva, and the whole rests upon a pedesial typifying Brahma. From the Voyage aux In-Us On'en/ales el A. la Chine, par M. Sonnerat, depuis i774iusqu'en 1781. Tom. I., p. 179. 4 ANCIENT PHALLIC WORSHIP. Besides the Lingham, the equally significant Yoni or Cteis is to be seen, being the female organ of generation. It is sometimes single, often in conjunction, for the Indians, believing that the emblem of fecundity might be rendered more energetic by com- bining the organs of both sexes, did so unite them, giving to this double symbol the name of Pulleiar, confounded by some writers with the Lingham itself. This pulleiar is highly venerated by the sectarian worshippers of Siva (the third god of the Tri- mourti), who hang it round their neck, as a charm or amulet, or enclosing it in a small box, fasten it upon their arm. The Indians have also a little jewel called taly, worn, in Uke manner, by females round their necks as a charm. It is presented to them on their wedding day by their husbands, who receive it from the hands of the Brahmins. Upon these jewels is engraved the re- presentation, either of the Lingham or of the Pulleiar. Thefollow- inganecdoteconnectedwiththiscustomisgivenby M.Sonnerat.* " A Capuchin missionary had a serious dispute with the Jesuits residing at Pondicherry, which was referred for decision to the judicial courts. The disciples of Loyola, who can be toleration itself when toleration furthers their crafty and ambitious views, had declined all interference with the above custom. M. Tour- non, the Pope's legate apostolic, who regarded the matter as one not to be trifled with, and with whom, moreover, thejesuits were no favourites, strictly prohibited the taly, enjoining all female converts to substitute in its place either a cross or a medal of the Virgin. The Indian women, strongly attached to their ancient customs, refused obedience. The missionaries, apprehensive of losing the fruits of their zealous labours, and seeing the number of • Tocaf* «<.v /ni/««/ ii /u CTi'w., par Sonneratjdepuis 1774 jusqu'en 1761; Tom. i. liv. 2. i Plate III. Fig. I, Fig. 2. ^'^'- J- ^, production, or natural or original source^ the word Priapus may be Xx'z.n?,- \ax.^A principle of production or oi fecundation of Apis. The same symbol also bore among the Romans the names of TutunuSt Miitintis, and Fascinum. Among the many places where this divinity was worshipped, Lampsacus,* in Asia Minor, was the most noted on acconnt of the obscene rites there practised. The Priapi were of different forms ; some having only a human head • Hunc locum tibi dedico consacroque, Priape, Qu£e domus tua, Lampsaei est, quaque silva, Priape. Nam te pracipue in suis urbibuscolit. ora Hellespontia, caeteris ostreosior oris. — Catullus, Carm. xviii. y' lO ANCIENT PHALLIC WORSHIP. and the Phallus ; some with the head of Pan or of a faun — that is, with the head and ears of a goat.* Others, with their inde- | cent attribute, were placed in the public roads, and were tiien confounJetl with the divinities Mercury and Terminus, who presided over boundaries. Scaligcr says that he saw at Rome, in the palace of a cardinal.f a similar statue, whose phallus had served as a sign post. J All tlie human part of these Priapi were invariably painted red.^ When furnished with arms, which he was when representing Terminus, Priapus held in one hand a reaping hook, and, like Osiris, grasj^ed with the other the characteristic feature of his divinity, which was always of a monstrous size and in a state of energy. In the towns, Primus had public chapels, whither such devotees as were sufTering from maladies connected with his attributes repaired for the purpose of offering to him ex-votos representing the parts afflicted ; these ex-votos being sometimes paintings and, at others, little figures made of wax or of wood, and occasionally, even of marble. Females as superstitious, as they were lascivious, might be seen offering in public to Priapus, as many garlands as they had had lovers. These they would hang upon the enormous phallus of the idol, which was often hidden from sight by the number suspended by only one woman. " See Plaie II.. figure 2. t From possessing such an article of viaru, his Eminence must surely have been of the opinion of Cardiiial Bembo — Ihal Ihtre is no stn below the tiavd. X VaXce minax el parte lui majore, Priape, Ad fontem qujeso, die mihi, qua sit iter. — Priapeia Carm. § See notet, p. ii. /. SYMBOLS OF REPRODUCTION. ii Others offered to the god as many phalli, made of the wood of the willow tree, as they had vanquished men in a single night. St. Augustine informs us that it was considered by the Roman ladies as a very proper and pious custom to require young brides to seat themselves upon the monstrous and obscene member of Priapus : and Lactantius says, " Shall I speak of that Miiiinus, upon the extremity of which brides are accustomed to seat them- selves in order tliat the god may appear to have been the first to receive the sacrifice of their modesty? " * These facts prove that the worship of Priapus had greatly degenerated with the Romans, since, losing sight altogether of the object typified, they attach themselves to the symbol alone, * in which they could see only what was indecent ; and hence religion became a pretext for libertinism. •}• Respected so long as the Roman manners preserved their pris- tine simplicity, but degraded % and vilified in proportion as the morals of that people became corrupted, the very sanctuary itself of Priapus failed to protect him from obloquy and ridicule. Christian writers added their indignant invectives to the biting sarcasms of the poets, and the worship of Priapus would have been annihilated had not superstition and the force of habit, that most indestructible of all human affections, come to the rescue. These two powerful levers of mankind triumphed over reason • See S. AugTistine, Civ.Dei.,Iib. 6, cap. 9, and Lactantius De falsa rtUgione. lib. I. t See Plate I., figure 4. This phallus was found at Pompeii over a baker's door. J Thus his statue was placed in orchards as a scare-crow to drive away superstitious thieves, as well as children and birds, Pomarii tuiela diligens ruhro Priape, furibus minare niuiino, — Priapeia Carm. 73. 12 ANCIENT PHALLIC WORSHIP, and Christianity, and succeeded, notwithstanding the strenuous and continued efforts of the latter, in maintaining in some degree the worship of that filthy diety; for the Christian priests, while i opposing oL PoHfmtice, the superstitions and impure practices I already adverted to, did not so do, as regarded the other customs equally repugnant to decency and true religion. Less austere to these, and consulting their own interests, they turned to their profit the ancient worship established by the Romans and strengthened by habit : they appropriated to themselves what they could not destroy, and, in order to attract to their side the V^otaries of Priapus, they made a Christian of him. But besides the Lingham of the Indians, the Phallus of the Greeks, and the Priapus of the Romans, the Cross (X}> although generally thought to be exclusively emblematical of eternal life, has also an account of its fancied similarity to the membnim virile, been considered by many as typical of the reproductive powers of nature. It was known as such to the Indians, being as common in their country as in Egypt or in Europe. " Let not the piety of the Catholic Christian," says the Rev. Mr. Maurice, "be offended at the preceding assertion that the Cross ' was one of the most usual symbols among the hieroglyphics of I Egypt and India. Equally honoured in the Gentile and the world, this Christian emblem of universal nature, of that world to whose four corners its diverging radii pointed, decorated the hands of most of the sculptured Images in the former country (Egypt), and the latter (India) stamped its form upon the most majestic of the shrines of their deities." It is well known that the cross was regarded by the ancient ' Egyptians as the emblem of fruitfulness. Thus the Rev. Mr. , • Ind, Antiq. ii., p. 361. ./? ^K F'g, 3- SYMBOLIC CROSSES. SYMBOLS OF REPRODUCTION. 13 Maurice describes a statue bearing a kind of cross in its hand as the symbol of fertility, or, in other words, of the procreative and generative powers.* The cross "]" so common upon Egyptian monuments was known to the Buddhists and to the Lama of Thibet 700 years before Christ. The Lama takes his name from the Lamali, which is an object of profound veneration with his followers : " Cequi est remarquable," says M. Avril, " c'est que le grand pr^tre des Tartares porte le nom de Lama, qui, en tangue Tartare, d^signe la Croix, et les Bogdoi qui con- quirent la Chine en 1664, et qui sont soumis au Dulai-Lama dans les choses de la religion, ont toujours des croix sur eux, qu'ils appalent lamas." f The letter Tau "]", being the last one of the ancient alphabets, was made to typify, not only the end, boundary, or terminus of districts, but also the generative power of the eternal trans- migratory life, and was used indiscriminately with the Phallus ; it was, in fact, the Phallus. J Speaking of this emblem, Payne Knight observes : "One of the most remarkable of those symbols of generation is a cross in the form of the letter X> which thus served as the emblem of creation and generation before the church adopted it as the sign of salvation, a lucky coincidence of ideas which, without doubt, facilitated the reception of it among the faithful," ^ And again, " The male organs of generation are sometimes represented by signs of the same sort, which might properly be called symbols of symbols. One of the most remark- • Ind. Antiq., vol. I,, p. 247. + Voyage dans la Chine par Avril, Liv. i X Higgins, Anacalypsis, vol, i., p. 269 § Worship of Priapus, p. 14 ANCIENT PHALLIC WORSHIP. able of tliese is the Cross in the form of the letter 1*) which thus served as the emblem of creation and generation."* The famous C?^x ansaiaf which may be seen on all the monuments of Egypt is what is alluded to by the Prophet Ezekiel, J and is affirmed by the learned L. A. Cro- zius to be nothing else than the triple Phallus mentioned by Plutarch. § We shall now proceed to notice a few of the t races of the phaj lic wor ship as were still to be found lingering m some parts of Europe so late as the iSth century, a tenacity of existence by no means surprising if it be considered that of all the human affections none is more dangerous to oppose, none more difficult to eradicate, than habit. Accordingly it will be found that the above superstition has maintained itself in countries where Christianity was already established, and that, bidding defiance to the severe precepts of that pure faith, it successfully resisted for at least seventeen centuries every effort made to extirpate it by the Christian clergy backed by the civil power. Its triumph was, however, by no means complete, for this worship was constrained to yield to circumstances and to use a disguise by adopting the forms and designations peculiar to Christianity, a mask which on the other hand, favoured not a little, its preservation. • /lid., p. 48. t For some ingenious and learned observations on iheTau or Crux Ansaia see Classical Journal, No. 39, p. 182. 1: Chap. iK„ v. 3. " And ihe Lord said unlo him : Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the forehead of the men that sigh and cry for the abominations that be done in the midst thereof." § For a description of some of the above-mentioned Crosses, see Plate V., also " Voyage dams la iasie et la hautcEgyfte pendant Its tampagnes de Bonaparte. 1802 et 1829," par Denon— Planches 48, 78. /. SYMBOLS OF REPRODUCTION. 15 Hence it was that the names of certain legendary saints were given to the ancient God of Lampsacus," the said names having some relation either to the act over which tliat diety presided, or to his most prominent attributes. The first bishop of Lyon was honoured throughout Provence, Languedoc, and the Lyonnais as a saint, and as his name hap- pened to be Pothin, Photinj or Fotin, commonly pronounced by the low orders Fontin, these people, who are very apt to judge of the nature of things by the sound of the words by which they are designated, thought St. Foutin worthy of replacing Saint Priapus, and accordingly conferred upon him the prerogatives of his predecessor. Saint Foutin de Var ailles had particular reverence paid to him in Provence, nor is this to be wondered at, since the power was attributed to him of rendering barren women fruitful, stimulating flagging husbands, and curing their secret maladies. It was consequently the custom to lay upon his altar, as was formerly done on that of the god Priapus, small votive offerings, made of wax, and representing the weak or otherwise afflicted parts. Sanci says, "To this saint are offered waxen models of the ptidenda of both sexes. They are strewn in great numbers over the floor of the chapel, and should a gust of wind cause them to rustle against one another, it occasioned a serious interruption to the devotions paid to the saint. I was very much scandalized," • This city was the binh place of the diety Priapus, whose orgies were ihere constantly celebrated. Alexander Ihe ^reat, in his Persian expedition, resolved to destroy Lampsacus on account of its many vices, or rather from a jealousy of its adherence to Persia ; but it was saved by the artifice of the philosopher Anaxamenes, who, having; heard that the king had sworn to refuse whatever he should ask him, begged him to destroy the city. t6 ANCIENT PHALLIC WORSHIP. continues he, " when, passing through the town, I found the name of Fmilin very common among the men. My landlord's daughter had for godmother a young lady whose name was Pontine." The same saint was similarly honoured at Embrun. When the Protestants took that town in 1585, they found, among the relics of the principi! church, ihe. Phallus oi St. Foutin. The devotees of that town, in imitation of pagan ones, made libations to this obscene idol. They p oured win e over the extremity of the Phallus, which was dyed red by it. This wine being after- wards collected and allowed to turn sour, was called the holy vinegar, and, according to the author from whom this account is taken,* was applied by women to a most extraordinary purpose ; but what that purpose was we are not informed, and therefore can only guess it. At Orange there was also a phallus much venerated by the in- habitants of that town. Larger than the one at Embrun, it was, moreover, covered with leather, and furnished with its appen- dages. When, in 1562, tlie protestants destroyed the cliurch of St. Eutropius, in this town, they seized the enormous Phallus and burned it in the market place. Similar Phalli were to be found at Poligny, Vendre in the Bourbonnais, and at Auxerre. The inhabitants of Puy-en-Ve!ay even to this day speak of their St. Fouslin who, in times not far remote from our own, was invoked by barren women who, under the Idea of giving greater efficacy to their prayers, scraped the phalli^s.of the sajntj and, mixing the particles so abraded in water, devoutly swallowed them, in the hope of thereby being rendered fruitful. It is no boubt to one of these phallic saints that Count de • Journal d'Henri JII. par I'Eloile, Tom. j. /. SYMBOLS OF REPRODUCTION. 17 Gebelin refers when, speaking of the goat Mend^s, he says : " I have read somewhere that in the south of France there existed not long ago a custom resembling the one mentioned ; the women of that part of the country devoutly frequented a temple containing a statue of the saint, and which statue they embraced, expectingthattheir barrenness would be removed by the operation. • In the neighbourhood of Brest stood the chapel of the famous Saint Guignole, or Guingalais, whose Phallic symbol consisted of a long wooden beam which passed right through tlie body of the saint, and the fore-part of which was strikingly characterisf''-. The devotees of this place, like those of Puy-en-Velay, most de- voutly rasped the extremity of this miraculous symbol for the purpose of drinking the scrapings mixed with water as an anti- dote against sterility, and when by the frequent repetition of this operation, the beam was worn away, a blow with a mallet in " the rear of the saint propelled it immediately in front. Thus, although it was being continually scraped, it appeared never to diminish, a miracle due exclusively to the mallet. Antwerp was the Lampsacus of Belgium, Priapus being the tutelary god of that city. Ters was the name given to him by the inhabitants who held this divinity in the greatest veneration. Females were accustomed to invoke him on the most trivial occasions, a custom which Goropius informs us continued as late as the 16th century, f So inveterate was this superstition that Godefrey de Bouillon, marquis of that city, the illustrious leader of the first crusade, in order to eradicate it, or to replace it by the ceremonies of the • Historie Religieuse du Calendrier, p. 420. t Johannis Goropii Becani, Origines Antwerpiana;, 1569, lib, i., p.p. 26 and 101. D i8 ANCIENT PHALLIC WORSHIP. Christian church, sent to Antwerp, from Jerusalem, asapresen.™ of inestimable value, the foreskin of fesus Christ.* This pre-l cious relic, however, found but little favour with the Belgiaal ladies, and utterly failed to supersede tiieir beloved Fascinum. f'" In the kingdom of Naples, in the town of Trani, the capital of the province of that name, there was carried in procession, during the Carnival, an old wooden statue representing an entire Priapus, in the ancient proportions; thiatis to say, that the dis- j tinguishing characteristic of that god was very disproportloned I to the rest of the idol's body, reaching, as it did, to the height of his chin. The people called this figure /'/ Santo Mcmbro, the (holy member. This ancient ceremony, evidently a remains of ; the feasts of Bacchus, called by the Greeks Dyonysiacs, and by j the Romans Liberalia, existed as late as the commencement of I the i8th century, when it was abolished by Joseph Davanzati, i archbishop of that town. Sir W. Hamilton's account of the worship paid to St. Cosmdl and St. Damianus is very curious. " On the 27th September, at I Isernia, one of the most ancient cities of the kingdom of Naples, J situated in the province called the Contado di Molise, and] adjoining the Aruzzo, an annual fair Is held which lasts three days. On one of the days of the fair the relics of Sts. Cosmo and 1 Damianus are exposed. In the city and at the fair, ex-votos of wax represendng the male parts of generation, of various dimen- sions, sometimes even of the length of a palm, are publicly ■ • The foreskins, still extanl, of the Saviour, are reckoned to be twelve in number. One was in the possession of the monks of Coulombs; another at the Abbey of Charroux; a third at Hildesheim, in Germany; a fourth at Rome, in the Church of St. Jean -de- Lat ran ; a fifth at Antwerp ; a sixth at Puy-en- Velay, in the Church of Notre Dame, &'C., ^r-z. So much for relics 1 tDulaurc, SingTjlaril^s Historiques de I'Historie de Paris, p. 77, Paris, 1825. I f'g. I- SILVER EX VOTO. APPEN KAIGHAYZ ai4>VH2 A\ EErOS 1AKX02. /. SYMBOLS OF REPRODUCTION. 19 1 for sale. There was also waxen vows that represent other parts of the body mixed with them, but of those there are few in comparison of the number of the Priapi, The distributors of these vows carry a basket full of them in one hand, and hold a plate in the other, to receive the money, crying out, "Saints Cosmo and Damianus I " If you ask the price of one, the answer is, " piii ci metti,piit meriti ; " the more you give, the more the merit. The vows are chiefly presented by the female sex, and they are seldom such as represent legs, arms, &c., but most commonly the male parts of generation. The person who was at the y!^', in the year 1780, and who gave me this account (the authenticity of which has since been con- ] firmed to me by the governer of Isernia) told me also that he/ heard a woman say, at the time she presented a vow, " Santo\ Cosmo, benedctto, cost lo vogHo." Blessed St. Cosmo, "let it be like this 1 " The vow is never presented without being accom-\ panied by a piece of money, and is always kissed by the devotee \ at the moment of presentation. * But, as might naturally be expected, this does not suffice to fructify barren women ; and consequently another ceremony, one which is doubtless more efficacious, was required. The parties who resort to this fair, slept for two nights, some in the church of the Capuchian friars and the others in that of the Cordeliers, and when these two churchs were found to be • letter of Sir W. Hamilton prefixed to Payne Knight's " Worship of Priapus." For a representation of the ancient. Ex vote, in silver, the size of the original see Plate VI., figure 1. It is copied from an additional plate inserted by M, Panizzi, late librarian of the British Museum, in the fly-leaf of Payne Knight's " WoTihip oj Phallus." 20 ANCIENT PHALLIC WORSHIP. insufficient to contain the whole of such devotees, the church of the Hermitage of St. Cosmo received the surplus. In the three edifices, the women were during the two nights, separated from the men, the latter lying under the vestibule, and the women, in the church, these, whether in the church of the Capuchins or in that of the Cordeliers, were under the pro- tection of the Father guardian, the vicar, and a monk of merit. In the hermitage, it was the hermit himself who watched over them. From this it may easily be imagined how the miracle was effected without troubling Saint Cosmo and Saint Damianus at all, in the matter, as well as that the virtue, possessed by those two saints was extended even to young maidens and widows. DESCRIPTION of the symbols under which the te- Productive power was anciently worshipped, having been given in the preceding Essay, the present one I will contain some account of the negation or absence of that faculty, whether total or partial, as known under the names of Impotency and Sterility. Potency or power, as regards the generative act, may be defined as — the aptitude or ability to beget ; and Impotency, the negation or absence of such power. The canon law distinguished three kinds of impotency — viz., that wh[ch proceeds from frigidity ; that which is caused by sor- cery {ligature or point-tying), and that which proceeding from some defect of conformation is properly designated as impoientia coeundi. The different kinds of impotency may be thus classed ^^^ — 1. Those which are proper to men; 2. Those proper to women, and 3. Those com.Tion to both sexes. 24 //. ABSENCE OF THE REPRODUCTIVE POWER. the Fallopian tubes were completely obliterated by the thickening of the parietes or sides, an evident consequence of '^ I the continual orgasm in which they were kept by immoderate • indulgence in coition. The absence of menstruation almost always induces barren- ness. Cases are, notwithstanding, reported in which women have their menses during pregnancy, but these are exceptions which so far from invalidating the rule, confirm it. Polypi, or the developement of fibrous bodies in the uterus, present an equal obstacle to fecundation, their presence having the effect of perverting the physiological functions of tlie uterus, nor does their removal always cause sterility to disappear. Impotency in women can only result from the absence of the !_ vagina, or from its excessive narrowness which does not allow of the approach of the male, although instances have occuredof fecundation being effected without the introduction of the male organ. Thus cases have been found of women who have been fecundated, and have even arrived at the term of pregnancy, having been obliged to submit to a surgical operation for the removal of the Hymen, which membrane had not been broken in the acts which had nevertheless effected the fecun- dation. Lastly, the excessive length, when it does exist, of the clitoris, also opposes the conjugal act, by the difficulty it presents to the introduction of the fecundating organ; the only remedy to be employed in this case consists in amputation, an operation which has been frequently performed. The organ in question is known to resemble, in a very great degree, the virile member, both in external' form and internal structure, to be susceptible of erection and relaxation and endowned with ex- quisite sensibility. It has been seen equal to the penis in volume. ANAPHRODISIA. 25 A remarkable instance is given by Home.* It occured in a negress who was purchased by General Melville, in the island of Dominica, in the West Indies, about the year 1744. She was of the Mandango nation, 24 years of age, her breasts were very flat, she had a rough voice, and a masculine countenance. The clitoris was two inches long, and in thickness resembled a common sized thumb, when viewed at some distance the end appeared round and of a red colour, but upon closer examination was found to be more pointed than that of a penis, and having neither prepuce nor perforation ; when handled it became half erected, and was In that state fully three inches long and much thicker than before : when she voided her urine she was obliged to lift it up, as it completely covered the orifice of the urethra. The other parts of tlie female organs were found to be in a natural state. Columbus quotes the existence of a woman who had a clitoris as long as the little finger. Haller speaks of another in whom this organ was seven Inches In length. Some have even been said to be of the monstrous length of twelve inches. These are the enormous dimensions which sometimes deceive as to the real character of the sex, and which have occasioned a belief in the existence of real hermaphrodites. Women so formed have also a great disposition to usurp the virile functions ; they pre- serve scarcely anything of their sex except tlieir habits and man- ,^ ners. Their stature is in general tall, their limbs muscular, their ^ face masculine, their voice deep, and their deportment bold and 'V manly — in a word, they completely justify the words of Martial : *' Mentiturque virum prodigiosa Venus." f * See LeciuTit on Comparalivt Analomy by Sir Everard Home, E(art. Vol. III., p. 166. Loiulon 1S23. t Lib. I., Epigram. 91. \ 26 //. ABSENCE OF THE REPR0DUC7 IVE POWER. In the case of man's impotency it often happens, on the con- trary, that, with organs to all appearance perfectly formed, he is, nevertheless, impotent. If the woman be organized for receiving, the man is formed for imparting ; now, in the majority, of cases, his impotency is such that, although he seems to be provided with abundant stores he is precluded from offering them. "Si Coneris, jacet exiguus cum ramice nervus Et quamvis tota palpetur nocte, jacebit." * Such, in fact, is the great difficulty of those individuals who have abused their organs and destroyed their sensibility. The erectile tissue whose turgescence is indispensable, no longer admits into its vascular plexus or network, a quantity of fluid sufficient to give the organ the power of penetrating-^'atr^/ exiguus — and, although it may be supposed that the seminal glands perform their functions perfectly well, and secrete abun- dantly the fluid peculiar to them, the copulative organ remains paralyzed. This is the impotence which is brought on by old age, and which Ariosto has so forcibly described in the follow- ing lines, wherein he relates the futile attempts made upon Angelica by the hermit : Egli I'abbraccia, ed a placer la tocca : Ed ella dorme, e non piii fare ischermo : Or le baccia il bel petto, ora la bocca, Non e, ch'l veggia, in quel loco aspro ed ermo, Ma nel incontro, il suo destrier trabocca Che al desio non risponde, il corpo infermo ; • Juvenal Sat. 1., vv. 204, 105, ANAPHRODISIA . 2^ Tutte le vie, tutti i modi tenta, Ala quel pigre rosso non perd salta Indarno el fren gli scoute e li tormenta E non pu6 far che tenga la testa alta. • At other times the impotency of the man is independent of the secretion of the fecundating fluid and even of the erection, both of which are regular. In such case it is caused either by the gland not being properly perforated, or by a contraction of the urethral canal, which contraction arrests the seminal fluid at the moment of expulsion, causing it to flow back towards the bladder, or else intercepting the continuous stream and allowing it to run by dribblets only. The former of these imperfections technically called Hypospsdimos isa viceof conformation in which the penis, instead of being perforated at the summit of the gland, presents its opening at a greater or less distance from the gland, at the lower part of the urethra or at the perinmim. As might be expected, impotency when precocious, influences, in no small degree, the moral character. Cabanis knew three men who, in the vigour of age, had suddenly become impotent, although in other respects they were in good health, mucii engaged in business, and had but little reason to be affected by the loss of pleasures in which they indulged but very rarely and with great moderation, yet their character became gloomy and irascible, and their mental powers appeared to diminish daily.f The celebrated Ribeiro Sanchez, a pupil of Boerhaave, observes in his " TraiU des maladies V^nMennes chroniques" that these • Orlando Furioso, Can, i, stan^. ^g, 60. t ^pport, Tom. I., p. 335- 28 //. ABSENCE OF THE REPRODUCTIVE POWER. diseases particularly dispose those subject to them to superstitious I terrors. Impotency may, however, equally proceed from moral as from physical causes. In this case it consists in the total privation of the sensibility peculiar to the reproductive organs. This insensi- bility is by no means infrequent in persons whose mental powers ' are continually in action, as the following case will shew: — A celebrated mathematician of a very robust constitution, hav- ing married a young and pretty woman, lived several yenrs with her, but had not the happiness of becoming a father. Far from , being insensible to the charms of his fair wife, he, on the contrary, fett frequently impelled to gratifying his passion, but the coa- 1 jugal act, complete in every other respect, was never crowned i by the emission of the seminal fluid. The interval of time which , occurred between the commencement of his labour of love and the end was always sufficiently long to allow his mind, which had been for a moment abstracted by his pleasure, to be brought back to the constant objects of his meditation — that is, to geometrical problems or algebraical formula. At the very moment even of the orgasm, the intellectual powers resumed their empire and all genital sensation vanished. Peirible, his medical adviser, re- commended Madame never to sufter the attentions of her I husband until he was kalj-seas-over, this appearing to him the , only practicable means of withdrawing her learned spouse from. ' influence of the divine Urania and subjecting him more imme- diately to that of the seductive goddess of Paphos. The advice proved judicious. Monsieur became the father of several fine and healthy boys and girls, thus furnishing another proofof the truth of the maxim, " Sine Ceren el Baccho friget Venus** But the impotency arising from the predominance of the intel- lect is the least formidable of all. The one most to be dreaded is j ANAPHRODISIA, 29 that which results from the excessive and premature exercise of the reproductive functions, for, as has been well observed, " the too frequent indulgence of a natural propensity at first increases the concomitant desire and makes its gratification a part of the periodical circle of action ; but by degrees the over excitement of the organs, abating their tone and vitality, unfits them for the discharge of their office, the accompanying pleasures are blunted, and give place to satiety and disgust." • Such unfortunate persons as are the victims of this kind of anaphrodisia become old long before their natural time, and have all their generative apparatus blasted with impotency. Their testicles withered and dried up secrete nothing but a serous fluid void of all virtue ; the erectile tissue no longer admits into its plexus the quantum of blood necessary for turgescence, the principal organ of the reproductive act remains in a state of flaccidity, insensible to the reiterated and most stimulating solicitations ; the muscles destined to favour erection are stricken witli paralysis, and the violence of their desires, joined to the want of power to gratify them, drives the unhappy victim to acts of the most revolting lubricity and thence to despair. An instance of this kind occurred in the case of a young man, the son of an opulent family. He had arrived at puberty, but from the early age of ten had been accustomed to indulge in indecent familiarities with young girls, who had gratified him by lascivious manipulations; the consequence was an entire loss of the erectile power. Travelling being recommended, he proceeded to France.where he consulted.but without avail, several celebrated physicians. He then went to the waters of Spa, and there his case was attentively and anxiously considered by Van-Hers. • Sir Charles Morgan, Philos. of Morals, p. 25. loII. ABSENCE OF THE REPRODUCTIVE POWER. The sensibility and weakness of the genital member were so i great that on the slightest touch, and without any sensation or desire to sexual intercourse the young man emitted a fluid similar to whey. This secretion continued night and day, every time that he made water, or upon the slightest friction of his linen. After various remedies being proposed, without any beneficial results, Van-Hers considered the disease asincurab'e; but, as the patient would not coincide in his opinion and was very rich, he continued his travels in Italy, France, and Germany, in the hope of recovering his powers of virility. He failed not, as usual, to meet with physicians who, from mercenary motives, held out to him the mojt illusory prospects of a perfect cure. At lengthj after six years passed in travelling and in vain attempts to regain the generative faculty, he returned to the candid and able physi- cian from whom he had the truth, and whose opinion he was now cohvinced was but too well founded. As may be supposed, Van- Hers perceived no new circumstance to justify an alteration in his view of the case, and the unfortunate young man returned home, deeply deploring the advantages of a fortune which had made him the victim of the precocious abuse of pleasures to which he must now bid adieu for ever.* Too great warmth of passion may not only defeat its own object, but also produce a temporary impotency. A lover, after having, with all the ardour of affec- tions, longed for the enjoy;nent of his mistress, finds himself at the moment of fruition incapable af consummating his happiness. The only remedy for this misfortune is to allay the over-excite- ment and to restrain the exuberance of the imagination. It would be madness to persist in endeavouring to obtain a victory which * Nosographie philosophiqut ANAPHRODISIA. 31 must be certain, as soon as the heat of the animal spirits being abated, a portion of them proceeds to animate the agents of voluptuous passion. The following are cases of this description. " A young man whose wife's relations had promised him a considerable estate as soon as she proved to be pregnant, fatigued himself to no purpose by continued devotions at the shrine of love ; his over anxiety defeating the very object he so ardently desired to accomplish. In despair at tlie failure of his repeated efiforts, he was, at lengtli, on the point of believing his wife bar- ren, when, following the advice of a judicious physician, he absented himself from home for a fortnight, and upon his return proved by the success which attended his amorous labours, that absence is sometimes the best doctor." " A noble Venetian, aged twenty years, was married to a very handsome lady, with whom he cohabited with a good deal of vigour, but never could emit semen in the coition, whereas in his dreams he could discharge very freely. This misfortune very much afflicted him and his family ; and as no remedy could be found at home, the Venetian ambassadors residing at the different courts of Europe were desired to consult some of the most eminent physicians in the cities where they resided, to account for the causes, and to find a cure for this extraordinary complaint of the difference of the states when in sleep and when actually in coition. " I was of opinion that it consisted altogether in the uretha being closely shnt by the vigour of the erection in coition which found so great a resistance that the powers that throw the seed out of the vesiaila: seminals could not overcome it ; whereas, in dreams, the pressure on the uretha being much less, an evacuation was affected." The method of cure was not less successful than obvious from 32 //. ABSENCE OF THE REPRODUCTIVE POWER. the foregoing account : for gentle evacuations and a slender diet ' brought about and fully completed their desires.* Cabanis is of opinion that debility of the stomach almost always produces a similar state in the organs of generation. " L'^nergie ou la dcbilite de I'dstomac produit, presque toujours, un (Stat analogue dans ceux de la gin^ration. J'ai soign^ un jeune homme chez qui la paralysie accidentelle de ces demiers avait tth, produit par certains vices de la digestion stomachique ; et qui reprit la vigueur de son 4ge, aussit6t qu'il edt r^couvr^ | la puissance de digerer. f Old Montaigne's advice in cases similar to those above cited is worthy uf notice. " As to what concerns married people," says he, "having the year before them, they ought never to compel, or so much as offer at the feat, if they do not find them- selves very ready. And it is better indecently to fail of hand- ling the nuptial sheets, and of paying the ceremony due to the wedding night, when man perceives himself full of agitation and trembling, expecting another opportunity at a better and more private leisure, when his fancy shall be better composed, than, ^ to make himself perpetually miserable for having misbehaved, j himself, and being baffled at the first result. Till possession be. I taken, a man that knows himself subject to this infirmity, should I leisurely and by degrees make certain little trials and light offers,, without attempting at once to force an absolute conquest overl his own mutinous and indisposed faculties ; such as know their I members to be naturally obedient to their desires, need to take no Other care but only to counterplot their fancy. The indocile " Medical Essays published by a society in Edinburgh, vol. I,, p. 270. Case reported by W. Cockbum, M.D. t Rapport, tome II., p. 422, lb ANAPHRODISIA. and rude liberty of this scurvy member, is sufficiently remarkable by its importunate, unruly, and unseasonable tumidity and impatience at such times as we have nothing for it to do, and by its most unseasonable stupidity and disobedience when we stand most in need of its vigour, so imperiously contesting the authority of the will, and with so much obstinancy denying all solicitations of hand and fancy. And yet, though his rebellion is so uni- versally complained of, and that proofs are not wanting to con- demn him, if he had, nevertheless, feed me to plead his cause, I should, peradventure, bring the rest of his fellow-members into suspicion of complotting the mischief against him, out of pure envy of the importance and ravishing pleasure peculiar to his employment, so as to have, by confederacy, armed the whole world against him, by malevolendy charging him alone with their common offence."* Too great warmth of clothing round the parts of generation, or too great pressure upon them, may be reckoned as causes of impotency. The custom of wearing breeches was considered by Hippocratesf as a predisposing cause of the impotency so common among the ancient Scythians. Mr. Hunter was also of opinion that this article of dress by keeping the parts too warm, affording them a constant support, and allowing the muscles but little freedom of motion, may, at least, relax and cause them to become flaccid, if it do not totally incapacitate them for the due performance of their functions. Equally disadvantageous, in this respect, is the practice of riding upon horseback, as the organs of generation are, of neces- sity, frequently compressed either against the saddle or the horse's back. Lalemant, in his Commentaries upon Hippocrates, adduces • Essays, Book I., chap, xx. Cotton's translation, t Hippocrates cle Aer: aqua et loco, 210. 34//. ABSENCE OF THE REPRODUCTIVE POWER. \ the case of bakers, upon whom, by their not wearing breeches, the contrary effect is produced. " We have often heard," says he, " that bakers and others whose parts of generation are not covered by clothing, but hang freely, h ave large, well-gown testicles. • Another cause of impotency is the allowing the parts of gene- ration to remain too long in a state of inaction. Those parts of the body which are most exercised are always found to be better grown, stronger, and more fitted for the discharge of their natural functions provided the exercise be neither too violent nor too frequent. The parts, on the contrary, which are condemned to rest and inactivity wither and gradually lose their tone,as well as the power of effecting the movements natural to them. Galen observes that the genital organs of the athlete, as well as those of all such whose profession or calling compelled them to remain chaste, were generally shrunken and wrinkled like those of old men, and that the contrary is the case with those who use them to an excess. " All the athleta:," says he, " as well as those who for the sake of preserving or improving the voice, are, from their youth, debarred the pleasures of love, have their natural parts shrunken and wrinkled like those of old men, while, in such as have from an early age indulged in those delights to an excess, the vessel of those parts, by the habit of being dilated, cause the blood to flow there in great abundance, and the desire of coition to be proportionately increased, all which is a natural consequence of those general laws which all our faculties obey. Thus it is that the breasts of women who have never had children remain always small, while those of females who have been mothers, and who suckle their children, acquire a considereble • Treatise on the Venereal Disease. ANAPHRODISIA. 35 volume, that they continue to give milk as long as they suckle their infants, and that their milk does not fail until they cease to nourish them."* So well, indeed, was this fact known to the ancients, that Aristophanes uses the expression, uionSijw /mcpai', pennm exigman, as an attribute of a youth who has preserved his innocence and Kw\iir iitfa\i,y, pcncni magnntn, as the sign of a dissolute one. It will easily be supposed that superstition when brought to act upon weak and ignorant minds, is capable of producing tem- porary impotence. The pretended charm or witchery common in France as late as-the des&j^f the 17th century, and known by the name oitiouer raiguilletle){^\nt tying) is a proof of this ; Ami lecteur, vous avez quelquefois Oui conter qu'on nouait raiguillette, C'est une dtrange et terrible recette, Et dont un Saint ne doit jamais user, Que quand d'un autre i! ne peut s'aviser. D'un pauvre amant, le feu se tourne en glance ; Vif et perclus, sans rien faire, il se lasse ; Dans ses efforts ^tonn^ de languir, I Et consume sur le bord du plaisir. Telle une fleur des feux du jour s^ch<5e, La t£te basse, et la tige pench^e, Demande en vain les humides vapeurs Qui lui rendaient la vie et les couleurs. f In olden times, prior to the invention of buttons, the femoral habiliments of men, or hose, as they were called, were fastened up by means of tags or points (Gallice) aigttiUettes, Thus, Falstaff says, "Their points being cut, down fell their hose." • Comment, de Aer : aqua el loco, 21O. t Voltaire, Pucelle d'Orldans, Chant xii. 36 //. ABSENCE OF THE REPRODUCTIVE POWER. From this French word aigtiUlette was derived the term nouer aiguilleite (to tie up the points), equivalent to — button up the flap, to express the rendering, by enchantment, a husband inca- pable of performing the conjugal rite. The whole secret of this charm consisted in the impostor choosing for his victim an individual whose youth, inexperience, or superstition presented him with a fit subject to work upon. The imagination of the party being already predisposed for the trick, a look, a sign, a menace, either of the voice or of the hand, accompanied by some extraordinary gesture, was sufficient to produce the cfifect, and, as the mere apprehension of an evil frequentlyoccasions its occur- rence) it followed that, superstition having prepared the event, the latter, in his turn, fortified the superstition, a vicious circle which may justly be considered an opprobrium to a man's intelligence. That such was the opinion entertained of it by sensible men when it was in vogue, will be seen by the following curious passage from an old and quaint French writer : " Quelques uns tiennent cela pour superstition, que quand on dit la Messe des espousees, lorsque Ton prononce ce mot Sam^ a la benediction nuptiale, si vous estrerignez une esguiUette, que le marie ne pourra rien faire d son espousee la nuict suyuante, tant que la dite esguillette demeurera notice. Ce que j'ay veu experimenter faux infinies fois : car pourveuque I'esguillette du compagnon soit destachee, et qu'il slot bien roide et bien au point il ne faut point douter qu'il n'accoustre bien la besongne, comme il appartient. Aussi donne Ton vn folastre amulette et digne du subject : c'est k sqavoir que pour oster le sort, it faut pisser au travers d'une bague de laquelle on a est6 espouse. Veritablement ie le croy : car c'est k dire, en bon Fran^ais que si on degoutte dans cet anneau de Hans Carvel, il n'y a charme qui puisse nuire. Aussi nouer resgulllette ne signifie autre chose qu'vn ANAPHRODISIA. 37 coUard amant qui aura le mebre aussi peu dispose, que si I'esguillette nesa brayette cstoit nou(^e.* As to the mode itself of conjuration, Bodin, a writer upon these subjects, asserts that there are not less than fifty different ways of performing it : of all which the most efficacious one is to take a small strip or thonfj of leather, or silken or worsted thread, or cotton cord, and to make on it three knots successively, each knot, when made, being accompanied by the sign of the crossi the word Ribald being pronounced upon making the first knot. Nodal n^on making the second one, and Vanarbi upon making the third and last one; all which must be done during the cele- bration of the marriage ceremony. For the sake of change, one of the verses of the Miserere niei, Dcus I may be repeated back- wards, the names of the bride and bridegroom being thrice pro- nounced. The first time, the knot must be drawn rather tight ; the second time still more so, and the third time quite close Vulgar operators content themselves with pronouncing some cabalistic words during the marriage rite, tracing, at the same time, some mysterious figures or diagrams on the earth with the left foot, and affixing to the dress of the bride or bridegroom small slips of paper having magical characters inscribed upon them. Further details may be found in the works of Sprenger, an inquisitor, Crespet of Sans, Debris, a Jesuit, Bodin, Wier, De Lancre, and other learned demonologists. This species of enchantment was not unknown to the ancients. Accordingly to Herodotusf Amasis was prevented enjoying his wife Ladice by a sorcery of this description, nor was it till after the Queen had vowed a statue to Venns, "si secum coiret Amasis," that the king's wishes and her own were gratified. • Bigarrures du Seigneur des Accords. t Herodotus Enterpe clxxxii. 38 //. ABSENCE OF THE REPRODUCTIVE PO WER. Plato warns married persons against such sorceries.* Virgil speaks also of impotency effected by ligature. Terna tibi ha;c primum, duplici diversa colore Licia circumdo. ^ ' Ovid admits the power of such charms in the following lines: Carmine Itcsa, Ceres sterilem vanescit in herbam Deficiunt la^si carmine fontis aquse : Ilicibus glandes, cantataque vitibus uva Decedit, et nulla forma movente, flexunt. Quid vetat et nervos Et juveni et Cupido, carmine abesse viro. J Of that most detestable of all tyrants, Nero, it is said that, finding he could not enjoy a female whom he passionately desired, he complained of having been bewitched. The fables of Apuleius are full of the enchantments of Pamphilus. § Numantina, the first wife of Plautius Sylvanus, was accused I of having rendered her husband impotent by means of sorcery " injecisse carmJnibus et veneficiis vecordium marito." U Paulus (Julius) of Tyr states that the law of the Twelve Tables contained an express prohibition against the employment of ligatures ; " qui, sacra, impia nocturnave fecerint, ut quern incantarent, obligarent," &c. ^ Gregory of Tours relates** that Eulatlus having taken a young i • De Legibus, lib, ii. ■f Ecologa viii. X Amor., lib. iii., Eleg. 6. § De Asino Auroe, lib. ii., v. 3, II Tacitus Annal., lib. iv., 2a. f Lib, v., Sentem, lit. 33. "• De rebus gestis Franco rum, lib. 4, cap. 94. r ANAPHRODISIA. 39 woman from a monastery and married her, his concubines, actu- ated by jealousy, put such a spell upon him, that he could by no means consummate his nuptials. Paulus j^mlHus, in his life of King Clovis says that Theodoric sent back his wife Hermeberge to her father, the King of Spain, as he had received her, a pure virgin, the force of witchcraft having incapacitated him from taking her maidenhead ; which sorcery Aimoinus Monachaus* asserts to have been effected by Queen Brunchante. The practise of point tying was formerly so general that princes and princess made it one of their most amusing pastimes. Louis Sforza having seen the young Princess Isabella, daughter of Alphonso King of Arragon, and who was betrothed to Geleas, Duke of Milan, was so enamoured of her beauty that he point- tyed Galeas for several months. Marie de Padille, concubine of Don Pedro King of Castille and Leon, point-tied him so effectually that he could not give the least marks of his fondness to his consort Queen Blanche. That the church acknowledged the power of these point-tiers is proved by the fact of their having been publicly anathematized by the provincial Councils of Milan and Tours, the Synods of Mont-Cassin and Ferriare, and by the clergy of France assembled at M^lun in 1579. A great number of rituals specify the means to be employed as countercharms to the sorceries of the point- tiers ; and the Cardinal Cu Perron, f a very able and experienced prelate, has inserted in the ritual of Evreux very sage directions for this purpose. Similar precautions may be found in the • Histoire des Fran9ais. t Nominated to the Bishopric of Evreux by Henry IV. of France, His favourite authors were Rabelais and Montaigne. ^oII.ABSENCJi OF THE REPRODUCTIVE POWER. synodal statues of Lyons, Tours, Sens, Narbonne, Bourges, Troyes, Orleans, and many other celebrated churches. St. Augustin, St. Thomas andPeter Lombard positively recognise the power of point-tying and of disturbing, in this manner, married persons in the enjoyment of their dearest priviledge. " Cerium est" says St. Augustine, " corporis vins incantationibiis vincirt.'* Our James L, who prided himself so much upon his skill in demonology, declares positively that sorcerers and witches possess the power of point-tyin;^, " Or else by staying married folkes, to have naturally adoe with other, by knitting knottes upon a point at tfu time oftkeir marriage.* The old parliament of France have generally admitted the power of these sorcerers. In 1582 the Parliament of Paris con- demned one Abel de la Rue to be hung and afterwards burnt for having wickedly and wilfully point-tied Jean Moreau de Con- tommiers. A singular sentence was pronounced in 1 597 against M. Chamouillard for having so bewitched a young lady about to be married that her husband could not consummate the mar- riage. But the most singular instance of the kind upon record is that of R, F. Vidal dc la Porte, who was condemned by the judges of Riom to make the amende honorable., and afterwards to be hung, and his lady to be burnt until reduced to ashes for having by sorceries and wicked and sacrilegious words point- tied, not only the young men of his town, but also all the dogs, cats and other domestic animals, so that the propagation of these species so useful to man was upon the point of being stopped. In 1718 the Parliament of Bordeaux ordered a famous point-tier to be burnt. This pretended sorcerer had been accused and convicted of having point-tied a nobleman • Demonolog-ie, 1603, Book I., Chap, III., |j. 12, 1 ANAPHRODISIA. 41 of high family, his wife, and all the men and women servants in his establishment. It must not be supposed that no countePLcharms or amulets existed. The Curate Thiers, who has written at large upon this subject, enumerates twenty-two different ones, the most potent of which were the following : 1 .' To put salt in the pocket before proceeding to church ; pennies marked with the cross and put into tlie shoes of the bride and bridegroom were equally efficacious. 2. To pass three times under the crucifix without bowing to it. 3. For the bridegroom to wear upon the wedding day, two shirts, one turned inside out upon the other, and to hold, in the left hand, during the nuptial benediction, a small wooden cross. 4. To lay the new married couple naked upon the ground • to cause the bridegroom to kiss the great toe of the bride's left foot, and the bride the great toe of the bridegroom's right foot : > after which they must make the sign of the cross with the left hand and repeat the same with the right or left hand. 5. To take the bridegrooms's point-hose and pass it through the wedding ring : knot the said jxiint, holding thefingers in the ring, and afterwards cut the knot saying, " God loosens what the Devil fastens." 6. When the new-married couple are about to retire for the night to fasten upon the thigh of each'a little slip of paper, in- scribed with these words, Domine, quis similis tibi? 7. To broach a cask of white wine from which none has yet been drawn, and pour the first of the liquor which flows, through the wedding ring. S. To rub witli wolf's grease the door posts through which the married couple pass on their way to the nuptial bed. 42 //. ABSENCE OF THE REPROD UCTIVE PO IVER. g. To write upon virgin parchment before sunrise, and for nine days successively, the word Arigazartor. lo. To pronounce the word Tentoti three times successively at sun-rise, provided the day promises to be fine. But tlie mode of procedure in which the learned curate Thiers appears to place the greatest confidence is that employed by a ' priest of his acquaintance. This person's plan was to tie the ' bride and bridegroom to a pillar and administer to them with his own hand the stimulus with which the pedagogue awakens the genius of idle and sluggish pupils; after this flagellation they are unbound and left together, amply provided with such restorative and stimulants as are proper to maintain the condi- tion so favourable to Venus, in which he had placed them. The result was in the highest degree satisfactory. Bodin informs us that he knew at Bordeaux, a woman of middle age, but still lively and fresh, who professed to cure radically all enchantments of this description. Nothing could be more natural than her modus operandi. She got into bed with her patients, and tliere by the resources of her amatory powers succeeded so well in arousing their flagged and slngglish desires that their domestic peace was never afterwards disturbed by the reproaches of their disappointed spouses, Upon her mother's death the daughter embraced the same interesting pro- fession, and ill addition to acquiring considerable reputation by her successful practice, realized a handsome fortune. Ridiculous and contemptible as this quackery now appears, so great at one time was its power, that persons every way qualified for the generative act, have been seen suddenly reduced to a humiliating nullity, in consequence of an impudent charlatan, a village sorcerer or a fortune-teller having threatened them with point-tying. Saint Andr^, a French physician, gives an account ANAPHRODISIA. 43 fa poor weaver, who having disappointed Madame Andrd in not bringing home some work was threatened by that lady with being point-tied by her husband the doctor. The poor fellow was so alarmed tliat the charm had the same effect as a reality, nor was it until the work he had in hand was finished, and the lady had consented to restore him to his natural state, that he could resume the exercises of hisconjjgal duties. Venette gives the case of one Pierre Buriel. " This man," to use Venette's own words, " was about thirty-five years of age, a cooper and brandy manufacturer by trade. Being at work one day for my father in one of his country houses, he offended me by some impertinent observations, to punish which I told him the next day that I would point-tie him when he married. It so happened that he had the intention of uniting himself with a servant girl who lived in the neighbourhood, and although I had threatened him merely in a jesting manner, it made so strong an impression upon him that although, when married, he felt the most ardent desire to enjoy his connubial rights, he found him- self totally incapacitated for the work of love. Sometimes when he flattered himself with being on the point of accomplishing his wishes, the idea of the witchcraft obtruded'itself, and rendered him for the rime completely impotent. This incapacity alienated the afi'ections of his wife, and produced on her part towards him the most repulsive coldness. I need not say what pain I felt on witnessing these effects, how I regretted having, I may truly say, unintentionally caused so unpleasant a state of things, and I did and said everything in my power to disabuse the man, and prove to him the folly of his impressions. But the more I did so, the more he testified his adhorrence of me, and his conviction that I had really bewitched him. At length the curate of Notre Dame, who had married them, interfered, and after some time succeeded, 44 //■ A DSENCE OF THE RE PR OD UC TI VE P J VER. though with considerable difficulty, in freeing him from his imaginary bonds. They lived together for twenty-eight years, and several children, now citizens of Rochelle, were the issue Qljlieiiumion, " f M ontaigne gives us a curious story upon tliis subject, which lie^Tntroduces thus : " I am not satisfied and make a very great question, whether those pleasant ligatures with which the age of ours is so fettered^and there is almost no other talk — are not mere voluntary impressions of apprehension and fear; for I know by experience, in the case of a particular friend of mine, one for whom I can be as responsible as for myself, and a man that can- not possibly fall under any manner of suspicion of sufficiency, and as little of being enchanted, who having heard a companion of his make a relation of an unusual frigidity that surprised him at a very unseasonable time, being afterwards himself engaged upon the same account, the horror of the former story so strangely [Msscssed his imagination that he ran the same fortune the other had done ; he from that time forward (the scurvy remembrance of his disaster running in his mind and tyrannizing over him) was extremely subject to relapse into the same misfortune. He found some remedy, however, for this inconvenience by himself frankly confessing and declaring beforehand to the party with whom he was to have to do, the subjection he lay under, and the infirmity he was subject to ; by which means the contention of his soul was, in some sort, appeased; and knowing that now some such misbehaviour was expected from him, the restraint upon those faculties grew less, and he less suffered by it, and afterwards, at such times as he could be in no such apprehension as not being about any such act (his thoughts being then dis- engaged and free, and his body being in its true and natural state)by causing those parts to be handled and communicated to i ANAPHRODISIA. 45 the knowledge of others, he was at last totally freed from that vexatious infirmity. After man has once done a woman right, he is never after in danger of misbehaving himself with that person, unless upon the account of a manifest and inexcusab'e weakness. Neither is this disaster to be feared but in adventures where the soul is over-extended with desire or respect, and espe- cially where we meet with an unexpected opportunity that requires a sudden and quick despatch ; and in these cases, there is no possible means for a mao always to defend himself from such a surprise as shall put him damnably out of countenance. And yet I have known some who have secured themselves for this misfortune by coming half-sated elsewhere, purposely to abate the ardour of their fury, and others who being grown old, find themselves less impotent by being less able; and particu'arly one who found an advantage by being assured by a friend of his diat had a counlercharm against certain enchantments that would defend him from this disgrace. The story itself is not much amiss, and therefore you shall have it. — .A count of a very great family,and with whom I had the honour to be familiarly intimate, being married to a very fair lady, who had formerly been pre- tended to and importunately courted by one who was invited to and present at the wedding. All his friends were in very great fear, but especially an old lady, his kinswoman, who had the ordering of the solemnity, and in whose house it was kept, sus- pecting his rival would, in revenge, offer foul play, and procure some of these kinds of sorceries to put a trick upon him, which fear she also communicated to me, who, to comfort her, bade her not trouble herself, but rely upon my care to prevent or frustrate any such designs. Now, I had, by chance, about me, a certair^ flat piece of gold, whereon were graven some celestial figures good to prevent frenzy occasioned by the heat of the sun, or for any pains of the head, being applied to the suture ; where, that it 46//. ABSENCE OE THE REPRODUCTIVE POWER. might the better reniain firm, it was sewed to a ribbon, to be tied under the chin. A foppery cousin-german to this of which I am speaking was Jacques Pelletier who lived in the house, presented to me for a singular rarity and a thing of sovereign virtue. I had a fancy to make some use of this quack, and therefore privately told the count that he might probably run the same fortune other bridegrooms had sometimes done, especially some persons being In the house who, no doubt, would be glad to do him such a courtesy ; but let him boldly go to rest, for I would do him the office of a friend, and if need were, would not spare a miracle that it was in my power to do, provided he could engage to me, upon his honour, to keep it to himself, and only when they came to bring him his candle (a custom In France being to bring the bridegroom a candle In the middle of the night, on his wedding night) if matters had not gone well with him, to give such a sign, and leave therest to me. Now, he had his ears so battered and his mind so prepossessed with the eternal tattle of this bulsness, that when he came to It, he did really find himself tired with the trouble of his imagination, and accordingly, at the time appointed, gave me the sign. Whereupon I whis- pered him in the ear, that he should rise under pretence of putting us out of the room, aad after a jesting manner, pull my night- gown from my shoulders, throw It over his own, and keep it there till he had performed what I appointed him to do, which was that when we were all gone out of the chamber, he should withdraw to make water, should three times repeat such and such words and as often do such and such actions ; that at every of the three times he should tie the ribbon I put Into his hand about his middle, and be sure to place the medal that was fast- ened to it (the figures in such a posture) exacdy upon his reins ; which being done, and having the last of the three times so well girt and fastened the ribbon that it could neither untie nor slip AMAPHRODISIA. 4? from its place, let him confidently return to his business, and withal not to forget to spread my gown upon the bed so that it might be sure to cover them both. These ridiculous circumstances are the main of the effect, our fancy being so far seduced as to believe that so strange and uncouth formalities must of neccessity pro- ceed from some abstruse science. Their inanity gives them reverence and weight. However, certain it is that my figures proved tliemselves more Veneran tlian Solar, and the fair bride had no reason to complain." Upon a due consideration of this singular superstition, itmust^ be obvious to any person of sense that these pretended ligatures are, in fact, the consequence of an enfeebled constitution, weak intellects, and sometimes of an ardent imagination, an over-ex- cited desire which carries the vitality to the head, and diverts it \ from its principal direction. Do away with these circumstances and imagine a man in full health, and gifted with a young and vigorous constitution, alike incapable of allowing himself to be acted upon by vain terrors, ?nd of permitting his passions an uncontrolable course ; and all the charms and incantation of these redoubted point-tiers would immediately cease. Who, for instance, could pretend to point-tie tliat hero of ancient Greece so famous for his twelve labours, of which by far the most brilliant was the transforming, in tlie coiu-se of one night, fifty r young virgins into as many women ! * The most singular circumstance, however, connected with impotency is, that for a long time there existed^^xclusively in France a particular kind of proof called— Th ^udicial Congress , In the old jurisprudence of that country but little value was attached to moral proofs ; all was made to depend upon material ones, which were made by witnesses. The whole enquiry after truth was made to depend upon the establishment of the fact, and. *■ Hercules, puer, L Virgines, una n ■, gravjdus reddil." — Coclius, lib. 48 //. ABSENCE of the REPRODUCTIVE PO WER^^ too frequently, the administrators of the law were not over-' scrupulous as to the nature of the testimony by which it was to I be proved. Provided there were such testimony, no matter tA\ whatever kind, no matter how contradictory to common sense, " justice pronounceditself satisfied, for, relying upon this testimony it was enabled to pronounce its decision, and thi;; was all it required. Hence all those personal examinations of litigants, so often practised formerly, and hence the judge, whatever might he the nature of the suit or complaint, ordered a report to be mane by parties chosen to that effect, and who were called experts or examiners. This mode of procedure was employed in cases in which a woman applied for a divorce from her husband on the ground of impotency : hence arose the Congn's, in which the justice of the application was to be proved in the presence of ex- aminers appointed to give in a report upon the case to the court. " Ce qui est encore plus honteux," says a writer of the 17th century, "c'est qu'un quelques proems, les hommes ont visits la fenime, et au contraire, les femmes ont ^ti^ admises i visiter I'homme, qui a et^ cause d'une grande irrison et moquerie, que telles procedures ont servi dc contes joyeuxet plaisans discours en beaucoup d'endroits."* The whole was a most disgusting procedure, which, although greatly abused, was for a long time encouraged as offering a legal mode of dissolving a marriage which was incompatible with the happiness of both the parties, but H hich the law declared to be indissoluble. The judges who introduced or maintaiued the Congress, who, in fact, protected it, only contemplated it, but certainly most erroneously as a proper means of legalizing divorces, All historians, qnd other writer who have treated of this dis- graceful institution, pretty generally agree in giving it an origin •Traite premier de la dissolution deMariagfe pour 1 impuissance et froideur de rhomme, ou de la Femme, par .^ntoine Hotman, p. 63, ANAPHRODISIA . 49 not further back than the commencement of the i6th century : it is, however, but the extension of a custom almost as obscene which prevailed in the first ages of Christianity. This was nothing less than the subjecting a young girl, whether nun or otherwise, accused of fornication, to a rigorous personal examination, whence was to result the proof of her innocence or guilt. Sia- grius, Bishop of Verona, and who lived towards the close of the fourth century, condemned a nun to undergo this disgusting and .insulting examination. St. Ambroise, his metropolitan, disapproved of the Bishop's sentence, declared the examination as indecent, thus attesting its existence. The opinion, however of this prelate, supposed as it was by that of several others, did not prevent the continuance of this custom for a very long time The ecclesiastical and civil tribunals frequently directed this proof to be made ; and Venette * cites the proces-verbal of a similar examination made by order of the Mayor of Paris in 1672, in the case of a woman who complained of violence com- mitted on her by a man of dissolute habits. We prefer giving the following curious description of the manner of conducting the Congress in the original quaint and antiquated French : ,^ ^ " La forme duquel(Congr^ est, que le iour et heure prins, et les Expers connenus ou nommez (qui sont ordinairement ceux memes qui ont fait la visitation lesquels partant n'ont garde de se contrarier ny de rapporte que I'homme y a faitl'intromission ayant desia (dcja) rapporte sa partie vierge et non corrompiie) le juge prend le serment des parties, qu'elles tascheront de bonne foy et sans dissimulation d'accoplir I'oeuvre de manage sans y apporter empeschement de part ny d'autre : des Expers qu'ils ferot fidelle rapport de ce qui se passera au Congrez ; cela fait • Tableau de I'Amour considers dans I'^ial du Manage, par 11,, chap 2, art. 3. H 50 //. ABSENCE OF THE REPRODUCTIVE PO IVER. les parties et les expers se retirent en une chabre pour ce pr^- , pari^e, ou I'homme et la feme soiit de rechef visiles, I'homme, afin de sqavoir s'il a point de mal, s'en estans trouue a aucuns I'ayans gaign^ depuis avoir est^ visite qui n'ont laissd d'estre s^pares encore, qu'il parust assez par Ik qu'ils n'estoient impuis- sans, la femme pour consid^rer I'estat de se partie honteuse et, par ce moyen cognoistre la difference de son ouverture et dilatation, aiiant et apres le Congrez, et si I'intromission y aura este faicte, ou non : sans, toutefois, parler en leur rapport de la virginite ou corruption de la feine, reputee vierge, ayant vne fois este rapportce telle, sans qu'on la visite plus pour cela. En quelques proces (come en celuy de Bray, 1578) les parties sont visiles nues depuis le sommet de la teste iusques k la plante des pieds, en toutes les parties des leurs corps, etiam in podice, poursqavior s'il n y a rien sur elles qui puissent auancer ou empescher le congrez, les parties honteuses de riiome lavees d'eau tiede (c'est a sijavoir k quelle fin) et la feme mise en demy bain, ou elle demeure quelque temps. Cela fait, I'home et la feme se couchent en plein iour en un lict, Expers presens, qui demeurent en la chamhre, ou se retirent (si les parties le requierent on I'vne d'clles, en quelque garde-robe ou gallerie prochaine, I'huis (la porte) entreouvcrt toutefois, et quand aux matrones se tiennent proche du lict, et lee rideaux estant tirez^ c'est a I'homme a se mettre en devoir de faire preuve de sa puissance habitant charnellement avec sa partie etfaisant intro- mission : ou souvent aduiennent des altercations honteuses et ridicules, rhoiiie se plaignant que sa partie ne le veut laisser faire et empesche I'intromission ; elle le niant et disant qu'il veut mettre le dolgt et la dilater, et ouvrir par ce moyen ; de sorte qu'i! faudroit qu'un home fust sans apprehension et pire qu'aucunes bfestes, ou que mcntula velut digito itlerctnr, s'il ne desbandsit cependant au cas qu'il fust en estat, et si no obstant ces indignitez il passail autre iusques a faire intromission; en- 4 " I 1 ANAPHRODISIA. 51 core ne sqauroit il, quelque erection qu'il face (fasse), si la par- tie veut rempescher si on ne lui tenoit les mains et les genoux ce qui ne se fait pas. En tin, les parties ayas estc quelque teps au lict, comme une heure ou deux, les Espers appellex, ou de leur propre mouvement, quand ils s'ennuyent en ayant de sub- ject, si sint virif s'approchent, et ouvrans les rideaux, s'infor- ment de ce qui s'est pass^ entre elles, et visitent la feme dere- chef, pour s9avoir si elle est plus ouverte et dilat^e que lorsqu' elle s'est mise au lict, et si intromission a 6t6 faicte aussi, a?i facta sit emission, ubi, quid et quale emissio. Ce qui ne se fait pas sans bougie et lunettes k gens qui s'en seruent pour leur vieil age, ni sans des recherches fort sales et odieuses : et font leur proces verbal de ce qui s'est passe au Congrez (ou pour mieux dire) de ce qu'ils veulent, qu'ils baillent au jnge, estant au mesme logis vne salle, ou chambre a part, avec les procur- eurs et patriciens, en cour d'Eglise, attendant la fin de cet acte lequel rapporte est tousiours (toujours) au desaduantage des hommes a faute d'auoir fait intromission, sans laquelle, I'^rection etiani suffidens ad comndem, ny remission n'empeschent la separation, come il se voit par les proces verbaux des Congrez de De Bray des onziesme et vingt unsiesme d'Apuril, 1578. Auxquels Congrez, principal ement au premier, II fit erection rapportee suffisante ad copuleni carnalem. et emisit extra vasi sed 7Wn intromisit ^ et pour cela fut separe ; laquelle intromission ne peust aussi estre faite au Congrez par quelque hoiTie que ce fut, si la feihe n'y preste consentement, et empeache, come il est toutnotaire. The first judicial sentence which ordered a Congress is said to have been caused by the shameless effrontery of a young man who, being accused of imjiotency, demanded permission to exhibit proof of his powers before witnesses, which demand being complied with, the practice was introduced into the juris- prudence of the country. But, as we have already shown, the 52 //. ABSENCE OF THE REPRODUCTIVE POWER, custom of tlie Judicial Congress may be referred to a far earlier period, in fact, to the remotest times of the middle ages, and tliat it originated with the Church, when the public morals were far from being well ascertained, as is proved by many well- known privileges belonging to the Seigneur or Lord of the Manor. Pope Gregory the Great, who was raised to the Pontificate in 590, appears to have been the first who con- ferred \x\yon bishops the right of deciding this description of questions. It was, doubtless, from considerations of tender regard for female modesty that the Church took upon itself the painful duty of investigating and deciding upon questions of this nature. Numaous instances prove this, especially the dissolu- tion of the marriage of Alphonso VI, of Portugal and his Con- sort, pronounced in 1688, and mentioned by Bayle. * The great antiquity of this custom is proved by the 17th Art. of the Capitulars of Pepin, in the year 752, which bears a direct allu- sion to it: inasmuch as that article established as a principle that the impotency of a husband should be considered as a law- ful cause for divorce, and that the proof of such impotency should be given, and the fact verified at the foot of the Cross — exeani ad crucem, et si vcrum ftierit, separanlur. That the Congress originated with the Church, who consi- dered it as an efficacious means for deciding questions of impo- tency, is still further proved by the President Boutrier and by other writers, who assert that the ecclesiastical judges of other times were alone empowered (to the exclusion of all secular ones)to take cognizance of cases of impotency. It is well attested that during the i6th and 17th centuries all the courts of law in France held the opinion that a marriage be anuUed on the demand of a wife who claimed the Congress, " Art Portugal, rem. F. ANAPHRODISIA. 53 The fatal blow to this disgusting custom was given by a decree of the Parliament of Paris, under the presidency of the celebrated Lamoignon, dated Feb. 18, 1677, which decree for- bids the practice by any other court whatsoever, ecclesiastical or civil. It is supposed that the ridicule cast upon it by the following lines of Boileau had no small share in causing its suppression. " Jamais la biche en rut, n'a pour fait d'impuissance Traind du fond des bois, un cerf a I'audience; Et jamais juge, entre eux ordonnant le congres, De ce burlesque mot n'a sali ses arrets."* Three causes were alleged for the abolition of the Congress — its obscenity, Its inutility, and its inconveniences. Its obsce* nity ; for what could be more infamous, more contrary to pub^ lie decency and to the reverence due to an oath than the impu-? rity of the proof, both in its preparation and execution ? It^ inutility ; for what could be less certain and more defective? Can it be, for one moment, imagined that a conjunction ordered; by judges between two persons embittered by a law-suit, agita-, ted with hate and fury against each other, can operate in them ? Experience has shown that, of ten men the most vigorous and \ powerful, hardly one was found diat came out of this shameful combat with success ; it is equally certain that he who had unjustly suffered dissolution of his marriage, for not having I given a proof of his capacity in the infamous Congress, had; given real and authentic evidences of it in a subsequent mar-| riage. This degrading mode of proof, in short, far from disn covering the truth, was but the cause and foundation for impo-i tence and falsehood. Its inconveniences ; these are — the declared nullity of a legitimate marriage — the dishonour cast \ upon the husband, and the unjust damages, oftentimes exorbi- \ 54 //■ ABSEUCE OF THE REPRODUCTIVE POWER. I tant, which he is condemned to pay — two marriages contracted upon the dissolution of the first — both of which, according to purity and strictness, are equally unlawful — the error or the malice discovered, ex post facie-, and, nevertheless, by the authority of the law, became irreparable. It was in the power of the magistrate, upon a complaint of impotency being alleged by a wife against her husband, to order examiners to make an inspection of the husband's parts of gene- ration, and upon their report to decide whether there was just cause for a divorce ; and this without proceeding to order the congress. The following are a few cases of this description, and are extracted from the reports and judgments of the Offici- alty at Paris in cases of impotency. Case I. Jean de But, master fringe maker, was, in 1675, charged with impotency by Genevieve Helena Marcault, his wife ; he being inspected by Renauolot, a physician, and Le Bel, a surgeon, by order of the official ; they declared that, after a due and thorough examination of all the members and parts of the said De But, as well genital, as others which might throw a light upon the case and likewise his condition of body, his age, the just conformation and proportion of his limbs, but especially his penis, wliich was found to be of as proper a thick- ness, length and colour as could be wished : and likewise his testicles, which exhibited no perceptible viciousness or malfor- mation, they are of opinion that from all these outward marks, which are the only ones they consider themselves justified In judging from, the said De But Is capacitated to perform the matrimonial act. Signed by them at Paris, July 18, T675, and attested by the Sieur de Combes. And on August 23, 1675, by the sentence of M, Benjamin, official, the said Marcault was non-suited and ordered to return to her husband and cohabit with him. ANAPHROD/SIA. 55 Case II. Inspection having been ordered by the official of Paris of the body of Joseph Le Page, who is taxed with impo- tency by Nicola de Loris, his wife, the said inspection was made by Deuxivoi and De Farci, physicians, and Paris and Dii Fertre, surgeons ; their report is as follows : — " We have found the exterior of his person to be like that of other men's, the penis of a good conformation and naturally situated, with the nut or glans bare, its adjoining parts fringed with soft, fine hair, the scrotum of an unexceptional thickness and extent, and in it vessels of good conformation and size, but terminating unequally ; on the right side, they end in a small, flabby substance instead of a true testicle; and on the left side we observed a testicle fixed to the extremity of one of the ves- , se!s. as usual, invested in its tunicle, which left testicle we do not find to be at all flabby, but of a middling size : upon the whole, we arc of opinion that the said Le Page is capable of the conjugal act but in a feeble manner. Signed and dated March 5, 1684. By the sentence of M. Cheron. the official, the said De Loris's petition is rejected, and she is enjoined to return to her husband. Case IV. Peter Damour being accused of impotency by his wife Louisa Tillot an inspection was ordered to be made by Rainset and Afforti, physicians, and Franchet and Colignon, surgeons. They report as follows : — " We have proceeded to inspect Peter Damour, master saddler at Paris, and having attcn- tentively examined his parts of generation, we have found them well constituted and in good condition as to their size, confor- mation and situation for the c mjugal act ; according, however to the statement of the said Damour himself, the erection is imperfect, the penis not being sufficiently rigid for perforating the vagina ; admitting this, however, to be the case, we are of opinion that the imperfection may be remedied, repaired, and 56 //. ABSENCE OF THE REPRODUCTIVE POWER. rectified, in time, by proper remedies. Signed January i6, [703. In consequence the official, M. Vivant, refused Villot's demand, and ordered her to go home to her husband and coha- bit with him as her lawful spouse. Case V. In the suit of Demoiselle Marie Louise Buch^res accusing of impotence Antoine de Bret, an inspection was ordered and performed by Venage and Lita, physicians, Lom- bard and Delon, surgeons. They reported as follows ; " We find the string of the foreskin shorter than It should be for giv- ing the nut free scope to extend itself when turgid : — that the body of the left testicle is very diminutive and decayed, its tunicle separated, the spermatic vessels very much disordered by crooked swollen veins — that the right testicle is not of a due thickness, though thicker than the other : that it is some- what withered and the spermatic vessels disordered by crooked swollen veins. On all which accounts we do not think that the natural parts of the said Sieur de Bret have all the disposition requisite for the well performing the functions they were desig- | ned for ; yet we cannot say that he is impotent until we have inspected the wife. Paris July 11, 1703, Signed. On the 22d of July, 1 703, the wife was inspected by the said physicians and surgeons and by two matrons ; the result of which was that they observed no visciousness of conformation in her womb : the valvula were circular and the caruncle myrtiformes, placed in the neck of the vagina, were soft, supple, flexible, entire, and did not seem to have suffered any violence or displacing, and the cavity of the womb-pipe was free and without any obstacle. Therefore they are of opinion that she is not capable of the con- jugal act, and that there has been no intromission, consequently that she is a virgin, and that if the marriage had not been consum- mated, it is her husband's fault, because of his great debility and de- fective conformation of his parts of generation. Another inspection | ANAPHRODISIA . 57 of the same parties was ordered Aug. i, 1703. Bourges and Thuillier being the physicians, and Tranchet and Meri the surgeons, who declared that after due and careful examination they had found no defect which could hinder generation. Their report is dated Paris, Aug. 13, 1703. M. Chapelier ordered, in consequence, both parties, — viz., the Sieur De Bret and the said Buch^res to acknowledge each other for man and wife. Case VI. On the 2nd April, 1653, the Chevalier Ren^ de Cordovan, Marquis de Langey, aged 25 years, married Maria de Saint Simon de Courtomer between 13 and 14 years of age. The parties lived very happily for the first four years, that is to say, up to 1657, when the lady accus ed her husband of impotency,_ The complaint was heard before the Lieutenant Civil of the Chatelet, who appointed a jury to examine the parties. The ex- amination was made, and the report declared that both parties were duly and fully qualified for performing the conjugal act. In order to invalidate this report the lady affirmed that if she was not a virgin it was in consequence of the brutal efforts of one whose impotency rendered him callous as to the means he employed to satisfy himself. The Chevalier de Langey, much incensed at this imputation, demanded the Congress ; the judge granted the petition, the wife appealed from tlie sentence, but it was confirmed by the superior courts. For carrying the sentence into effect; the house of a person named Turpin, who kept baths, was chosen. Four physicians, five surgeons and five matrons were present. It is impossible to enter into the details of this disgusting prequisition ; they are given in full detail in the proces verbal. Suffice it to say that the event being imfavourable to the chevalier, his marriage was declared void by a decree of the 8th of February, 1659. 58 IL ABSENCE OF THE REPRODUCTIVE POWER. By this decree the chevalier was not only condemned to pay back the dowry which he had had with his wife, but was pro- hibited from contracting another marriage — the lady, on the contrary, was allowed to enter into any other engagement she might think fit, as being considered entirely freed from her former bonds. The next day after this decree the chevalier made his protest against it before two notaries, declaring that he did not acknow- ledge himself to be impotent, and that he would, in defiance of the prohibition imposed upon him, enter into wedlock again whenever he pleased. The lady St. Simon contracted a marriage with Peter de Cau- mont. Marquis de Boesle, and from this marriage were born three daughters. At the same time the Chevalier de Langley married Diana de Montault de Navaille, and their marriage was followed by the birth of seven children. In 1670 the Marchioness de Boesle, the ci-devant Countess de I-angey, died. It was in consequence of the ulterior proceedings in the law courts respecting the real paternity of the children of the mar- chioness that the government availed itself of the opportunity of abolishing, as we have seen, the useless and obscene ordeal of the congress. We shall conclude the present Essay by transcribing Dr. Willick's judicious observations upon the sexual intercourse. CyMtf Sexual I.NTERCOURSE in partUitlar; Us physical conse- quences with respect to Die Constitution of the Individual ; under tohat circumstances it may be either conducive or detri- mental to Health, *' A subject of such extensive importance, both to our physical k ANAPHRODISIA. 59 and moral welfare, as the consequences resulting from either a too limited or extravagant intercourse between the sexes deserves the strictest enquiry, and the most serious attention of the philosopher. The inclination to this intercourse, and the evacuation con- nected with it, are no less inherent in human nature than other bodily functions. Yet, as the semen is the most subtle and spirituous part of the human frame, and as it contributes to the support of the nerves, this evacuation is by no means absolutely necessary; and it is besides attended with circumstances not common to any other. The emission of semen enfeebles the , body more than the loss of twenty limes the same quantity of blood; more than violent cathartics, emetics, &c. ; hence ex- cesses of this nature produce a debilitating effect on the whole nervous system, on both body and mind. It is founded on the observations of the ablest physiologists, that the greatestpartof this refined fluid is re-absorbed and mixed with the blood, of which it constitutes the most rarified and vola- tile part ; and that it imparts to the body singular sprightliness, vivacity, and vigour. These beneficial effects cannot be expected if the semen be wantonly and improvidently wasted. Besides the emission of it is accompanied with a peculiar species of tension and convulsion of the whole frame, which is always succeeded by relaxation. For the same reason, even libidinous thoughts, without any loss of semen, are debilitating, though in a less degree, by occasioning a propulsion of blood to the genitals. If this evacuation, however, took place only in a state of super- fluity, and within proper bounds, it is not detrimental to health. Nature, indeed, spontaneously etTects it in the most healthy individuals during sleep ; and as long as we observe no difference 6o //. ABSENCE OF THE REPRODUCTIVE POWER. in bodily and mental energy after such losses, there is no danger to be apprehended from them. It is well established and attested by the experience of eminent physicians, that certain indispositions, especially those of hypochondriasis and complete melancholy and incurable by any other means, have been happily removed in persons of both sexes, by exchanging a single stale for wedlock. There are a variety of circumstances by which the physical propriety of the sexual intercourse is in general to be determined. It is conductive to the well being of the individual, if the laws of nature and society (not an extravagant or disordered imagi- nation) induce man to satisfy this inclination, especially under the following conditions : 1. In young persons, that is, adults, or those of a middle age ; as from the flexibility of their vessels, the strength of their muscles, and the abundance of their vital spirits, they can more easily sustain the loss thence occasioned. 2. In robust persons, who lose no more than is speedily replaced. 3. In sprightly individuals, and such as are particularly addicted to pleasure ; for the stronger the natural and legal desire, the less hurtful is its gratification. 4. In married persons who are accustomed to it ; for nature pursues a different path, according as she is habituated to the reabsorption or the evacuation of this fluid. 5. With a beloved object; as the power animating the nerves and muscular fibres is in proportion to the pleasure received. 6. After a sound sleep, because then the body is more energetic ; it is provided with a new stock of vital spirit, and the fluids are duly prepared ; — hence the early morning appears to be ANAPHRODISIA. 6r designed by nature for the exercise of this function; as the body is then most vigorous, and being unemployed in any other pursuit, its natural propensity to this is the greater ; besides, at this time a few hours sleep will, in a considerable degree restore the expended powers. 7. With an empty stomach ; for the office of digestion, so mate- rial to the attainment of bodily vigour, is then uninterrupted. Lastly. 8. In the vernal months ; as nature at this season in particular, incites all the lower animals to sexual intercourse, as we are then most energetic and sprightly ; and as the spring is not only the safest, but likewise the most proper time with respect. to the consequences resulting from that intercourse. It is well ascertained hy experience that children begotten in spring are of more solid fibres, and consequendy more vigorous and robust, than those generated in the heat of summer or cold of winter. It may be collected from the following circumstances, whether or not the gratification of the sexual intercourse has been con- ducive^ to the well-being of the body ; namely, if it be not succeeded by a peculiar lassitude ; if the body do not feel heavy, and the mind averse to reflection, these are favourable symptoms, indicating that the various powers have sustained no essential loss, and that superfluous matter only has been evacuated. Farther, the healthy appearance of the urine in this case, as well as cheerfulness and vivacity of mind, also prove a proper action of the fluids, and sufficiently evince an unimpaired state of the animal functions, a due perspiration, and a free circulation of the blood. There are times, however, in which the gratification is the 62 II. ABSENCE OF THE REPRODUCTIVE POWER. more pernicious to health, when it has been immoderate, and without the impulse of nature, but particularly in the following situations. 1. In all debilitated persons ; as they do not possess sufficient vital spirits, and their strength after this venerating emission is consequently much exhausted. Their digestion neces- sarily suffers, perspiration is checked, and the body becomes languid and heavy. 2. In the aged ; whose vital heat is diminished, whose frame is enfeebled by the most moderate enjoyment, and whose vigour, already reduced, suffers a still greater diminution from every loss tiiat "is accompanied with a violent convulsion of the whole body. 3. 1:1 persons not arrived at the age of maturity ; by an easy intercourse with the other sex, they become enervated and emaciated, and inevitably shorten their lives. 4. In dry, choleric and thin persons ; these, even at a mature age, should seldom indulge in this passion, as their bodies are already in want of moisture and pliability, both of which are much diminished by the sexual intercourse, while the bile is violently agitated, to the great injury of the whole animal frame. Lean persons generally are of a hot temperament ; and the more heat there is in the body the greater will be the sub- sequent dryness. Hence, likewise, to persons in a state of iiuoxication, this intercourse Is extremely pernicious ; because in such a state the increased circulation of the blood towards the head may be attended with dangerous consequences, such as bursting of blood-vessels, apoplexy, etc. The plethoric are particularly exposed to these dangers. LVAPNROD/S/A. 53 5. Immediately after meals; as the powers requisite to the digestion of food are thus diverted, consequently the aliment remains too long unassimilated, and bezomes burdensome to the stomach. 6. After violent exercise ; in which case it is still more hurtful than in the preceding, where muscular strengdi was not con- sumed, but only required to the aid of another function. After bodily fatigue, on the contrary, the necessary energy is in a manner exhausted, so that every additional exertion of the body must be peculiarly injurious. 7. In the heat of summer it is less to be indulged in than in spring and autumn ; because the process of concoction and assimilation is effected less vigorously in summer than in the other seasons, and consequently the losses sustained are not so easily recovered. For a similar reason the sexual commerce is more debilitating, and the capacity for it sooner extinguished in hot than in temperate climates. The same remark is applicable to very warm temperature combined with moisture, which is extremely apt to debilitate the solid parts. Hence hatters, dyers, bakers, brewers, and all those exposed to steam, generally have relaxed fibres. It is an unfavourable symptom if the rest after this intercourse be uneasy, which plainly indicates that more has been lost than could be repaired by sleep ; but if, at the same time, it be pro- ductive of relaxation, so as to affect tlie insensible perspiration, it is a still stronger proof that it has been detrimental to the constitution. * 1 Diet and Regimen, p. 538, et seq. ESSAY III. ^m APHRODISIACS, OR, EROTIC STIMULI, AND H THEIR OPPOSITES, AS KNOWN TO, AND USED BY, H THE ANCIENTS AND MODERNS. ^f |i»ff«M|HEN it is considered how strongly the sexual desire is implanted in man, and how much his self-love is inter- ested in preserving or in recovering the power of gratifying it, his endeavours to infuse fresh vigour into his organs when they are temporarily exhausted by over-indul- ' gence, or debilitated by age cannot appear surprising. This remark particularly applied to natives of southern and eastern climes, with whom the erotic ardour makes itself more intensely felt ; since it is there that man's imagination, as burn- ing as the sky beneath which he first drew breath, re-awakens desires his organs may have long lost the power of satisfying^ and consequently it is there more especially that, notwithstanding the continual disappointment of his hopes, he still pertinaciously persists in searching for means whereby to stimulate his appe- tite for sexual delights. Accordingly it will be found that in 66 ///. APHRODISIACS AND the remotest ages, even the vegetable, animal, and mineral kingdoms have been ransacked for the purpose of discovering remedies capable of strengthening the genital apparatus, and exciting it to action. „r-^ But however eager men might be in the above enquiry, their J helpmates were equally desirous of finding a means whereby they might escape the reproach of barrenness, — a reproach than i which none was more dreaded by eastern women. Such means »^- was at last discovered, or supposed to be so, in the mandrake, * a plant which thenceforth became, as the following quotation proves, of inestimable value in female eyes, "And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them unto his mother, Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me, I pray thee, of thy son's mandrakes. " And she said unto her. Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband ? and wouldest thou take away my son's man- drakes also ? And Rachel said. Therefore he shall lie with thee to-night for thy son's mandrakes. "And Jacob came out of the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said, Thou must come in unto me. for surely I have hired thee with my son's mandrakes. And he lay with her that night. " And God barkened unto Leah, and she conceived and bare Jacob the fifth son." * There is only one other passage in the Bible in which this plant is alluded to, and that is in Solomon's song : lij • From navhpa, relating to cattle, and a-^apoi, baneful, injurious. + Genesis, Chap. XXX., V. 14, \%, 16, 17. The last verse must be considered as decisive of the efficacy of the mandrake. ANTI-APHRODISIACS. 67 " The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved."* All that can be gathered from the former of the above quota- tions is that these plants were found in the fields during the wheat harvest, and that, either for their rarity, flavour, or, more probably, for their supposed quality of removing barrenness in women, as well as for the stimulating powers attributed to them, were greatly valued by the female sex. In the quotation from Solomon's Song, the Hebrew word Dudaim expresses some fruit or fiowers, exhaling a sweet and agreeable odour, and which were in great request among the male sex. f According to Calmet, the word Dudaim may be properly deduced from Dudim (pleasures of love) ; and the translators of the Septuagint and the Vulgate render it by words equivalent to the English one — mandrake. The word Dudaim is rendered in our authorized verson by the word mandrake — a translation sanctioned by the Septuagint, which, in this place, translates Dudaim by ;<^\n /iaui^a-^opHf, mandrake — apples.and in Solomon's Song by oi /uivhpaopai (?nandrakes). Witli this, Onkelos J and the Syrian version agree ; and this concurrence of authorities, with the fact that the mandrake (airopa ntandragora) combines in itself all the circumstances and traditions required for the Dudaim, has given to the current interpretation, its present prevalence. • Solomon's Song, chap. vii. v. 1 3. t See the word Dudaim, in Dr. Kitio's Cyclopsedia of Biblical Literature. The learned doctor has given a sketch of the plant Mandragora, a copy of which the reader will find in plate VI. J Onkelos was a celebrated rabbin contemporary wifh St. Paul, and to whom the Targum, that is, a translation or paraphrase of the Holy Scriptures, is attributed. 68 ///. APHRODISIACS AND Pythagoras was the first (followed by Plutarch) who gave to this plant the name of avOp«)To^opf^o-< (man-likeness), an appella- tion which became very generally used ; but why he gave It Is not precisely known : Calmet, however, suggests as a reason the partial resemblance it bears to the human form, from the circumstance of its root being parted from the middle, downwards. The opinion respecting the peculiar property of the man- drake was not confined to the Jews, but was also entertained by the Greeks and Romans, the former of whom called its fruit — love-apples, and bestowed the name of Mandragoritis upon Venus, Dioscorides knew it by that of ^nvipa-topai, and remarks W^ that the root is supposed to be used in philters or love- potions ;* and another writer lauds it as exciting the amorous propensity, remedying female sterility, facilitating conception and prolificness, adding the singular fact that female elephants, after eating its leaves, are seized with so irresistible a desire for copulation, as to run eagerly, in every direction, in quest of the male, f Speaking of the plant Eryngium, the elder Pliny says : '* The whole variety of the Eryngium known in our (the Latin) language as the centum capita has some marvellous facts recorded of it. It is said to bear a striking likeness to the organs of generation of either sex ; it is rarely met with, but if a root resembling the male organ of the human species be found by a man, it will ensure him woman's love ; hence it is that Phaon, the Lesbian, was so passionately beloved of • Lib. IV,, cap, 76. t Quoted by 0«. Celsius in his " Hierobotanicort" Part I., par 5. art. Dudaim, from Epiphan : Physiolog'. c. 4. t Pliny's '■ Natural History," Vol. IV., p. 397 (Bohn's Classical Library). ANTl-APHRODISIA CS. 6c, Sappho."J If it lie true, as is asserted by medical writers, that the above root contains an essential oil of peculiarly stimulating qualities, the fact would account, not only for Sappho's passion for Phaon, but also for the high value set upon it by the rival wives of Jacob, For the same reason as that suggested by Calmet, Columella calls the mandrake semikonto : " Quamvis semikominis vesano gramine fceta Mandragorae pariat flores." * " Let it not vex thee if thy teeming field The half-man Mandrake's madd'ning seed should yield ; " and qualifies its seed by the epithet vesanus, because in his time (the first century after Christ) it was still supposed to form one of the ingredients of philters or love-potions. The super^ stitious ideas attached to the mandrake were indeed so current / throughout Europe during the middle ages, that one of the(^ accusations brought against the Knights Templars was that of / adoring, in Palestine, an idol to which was given the name of I Mandragora. f Even, comparatively, not very long ago, there I might be seen in many of the continental towns quacks and / mountebanks exhibiting little rudely-carved figures, which they declared to be genuine mandrakes, assuring their gaping audi- tors, at the same time, that they were produced from the urine of a gibbeted thief, and seriously warning those who might have to pull any out of the ground to stop their ears first, for otherwise the piercing shrieks of these plants would infallibly strike them with deafness. Wier thus describes the manufac- ture of these Interesting little gentlemen : " Impostors carve •Columella DehoTlorum Cullu,, v, 19, 20. t See a manuscript Interrogatory still preserved in the " Bibliolhtfjue Nationale," Fonds deBaluze, Rouleau 5. 70 ///. APHRODISIACS AMD upon these plants while yet green the male and female forms, inserting millet or barley seeds in such parts as they desire the likeness of human hair to grow on ; then, digging a hole in the ground, they place the said plants therein, covering them with sand till such time as the little seeds have stricken root, which, it is said, would be perfectly effected within twenty days at furthest. After this, disinterring the plants, these impostors, with a sharp cutting knife, so dexterously carve, pare, and slip the Htde filaments of the seeds as to make them resemble the hair which grows upon the various parts of the human body."* { "I have seen," says the Abbe Rosier, " mandrakes tolerably ^ well representing the male and female parts of generation, a I resemblance which they owe, almost entirely, to manual dex- ' terity. For the intended object, a mandrake is chosen having a strong root, which, at the end of a few inches, bifurcates into two branches. As the root is soft, it easily takes the desired form, which it preserves on becoming dry."f The author then describes the process of producing the resemblance of human hair, and which is similar to that given above. In the year 1429, a Cordelier by name. Brother Richard, fulminated from the pulpit a vigorous sermon against the amulette then much in vogue, and called " Mandragora." He convinced his auditors, both male and female, of its impiety and inutility, and caused hundreds of those pretended charms which, upon that occasion, were voluntarily delivered up to him, to be publicly burnt. It is, no doubt, to these mandragoras that an old chronicler alludes in the following strophe : • See " De rimposlurt dis Diabks," par Jacques Gr^vin, Tom. IV., p. 359, t From Weir " De Mag : demonJa :" Cours Complet d'agriculture par TAbbe Rosier, Tom. VI., p. 401. ANTI-APHRODISIACS. ; J'ai puis vu soudre en France Par grant derision, La racine et la branche De toute abusion. Chef de I'orgueil du monde Et de lubricity ; Femme oii tel mal habonde Rend povre utility.* In the 15th century the mandrake enjoyed in Italy so great a reputation as an erotic stimulant, that the celebrated Mac- chiavelli wrote a much admired comedy upon it, called " La Mandragora" The subject of this piece, according to Vol- taire, who asserts " qu'il vaut, peut ^tre, mieux que toutes les pieces d' Aristophane, est un jeune homme adroit qui veut coucher avec la femme de son voisin. II engage, avec de I'argent, un moine, un Fa. tuito ou un Fa tnolto, a s^duire sa maitresse et Ji faire tomber son mar! dans un piege ridicule. On se moque tout le long de la piece, de la religion que toute I'Europe pro- fesse, dont Rome est le centre et dont le si^ge papal est le trone." "I" Callimaco, one of the dramatis-personse of this comedy, thus eulogizes the plant in question, " Vol avete a intendere che non h. cosa pill certa aingravidare, (CunapozioTufatla di Mattdragola, Questa h. una cosi sperimentata da me due para di volte, e se non era questa, la Reina di Francia sarebbe sterile, ed infinite altre principesse in quello Stato." J • Recollections des choses merveilleuses Advenues en notre temps par George Chastelain, Edition de Coustelier, p, 150. t Lettres d'Amabed, Vol. XXXIV., p. 261. Edition Beuchot, Paris. J Mandragola, Atto If. Scena 6. See also La Fontaine's tale of "La Mandragore," founded upon the above comedy. fi in. APHRODISIACS AND " You must know that nothing is so sure to make women con- ceive, as a draught composed of Mandragola. That is a fact which I have verified upon four occasions, and had it not been for the virtues of this plant, the Queen of France, as well as many noble ladies of that kingdom, would have proved barren." By the Venetian law the administering of love-potions was accounted highly criminal. Thus the law " Dei makficU et herbarie.'^ Cap. XVI. of the code, entitled " Delia Commis- sione del maleficio " says, Statuimo etiamdio che se alcun homo o femina harra fattomaleficiij iguali so dlmandono volgarmente amatorie, o veramente alcuni alcri maleficii, che alcun homo o femina se havesson in odio, sia frusta et bollade, et che hara consigliato, patisca simile pena," * \1 The notion of the efficacy of love powders was also so preva- lent in the 1 5 century in our own country that in the Parliament /summoned by King Richard III., on his usurping the throne, I it was publicly urged as a charge against Lady Grey, that she j had bewitched King Edward IV. by strange potions and I amorous charms. " And here also we considered how that the said pretended marriage betwixt the abovenamed King Edward and Elizabeth Grey, was made of great presumption, without the knowing and assent of the Lords of this land, and also by sorcery and witchcraft committed by the said Elizabeth and her mother Jaquet Duchesse of Bedford, as the common opinion of the people and the public voice and fame is thorow all this land.'' • See Warburton on Shakespear's Othello, Act I., Scene 8. " By spelU and medicines bought o/moun/eiiinh." AN TI'APHRODISIA CS. 73 lightie (From the " Address of Parliament to the high and Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester.") * Modern writers, as might be expected, have taken a very wide range in their inquiries as to what kind of plant the Dudaim really was, some regarding it as lilies, roses, violets, snowdrops, and jasmine ; others, as melons, plaintain fruits, whirtleberries, dwarf brambles, the berries of the physalis or winter cherry , grapes of some peculiar kind, or even under- ground fungi, as truffles, &c. Many have supposed the word to mean the ingredients, whatever they might have been, of a charm or love potion, and hence have recurred to the man- drake, celebrated, as already said, thoughout antiquity, for its supposed virtues, and whose history has been tricked out with all the traditionary nonsense that might be imagined to confirm that report of such quahties. Liebentantz, f in 1 660 ; the younger Rudbeck, J in 1 735, and Celsius,^ in 1745, have displayed much erudition and research in their inquiries ; but the first of these writers arrived at the conclusion that nothing certain could be come to on the sub- ject ; white the second proposed raspberries as the Dudaim ; and the third maintained that they were the fruit of the Zizy- phus, the Spina Christi of the disciples of Linnaus. Maundrell, who travelled in the East in the 17th century, informs us that, having asked the chief priest of Aleppo what sort of a plant or fruit the Dudaim, or (as we translate it) the mandrakeSi were which Leah gave to Rachel for the purchase * See Speed's Hisiorie of Great Britaine. Richard III. Book II., page 913 folio edition, 1633. t Exercitatio de Rachelis Deliciis, 410, 1678. X Atlantica illustrata, 1733, § Hierobotanicon, 1745. 74 ///. APHRODISIACS AND of her husband's embraces, the holy man replied " that they were plants of a large leaf bearing a certain sort of fruit, in shape resembling an apple, growing ripe in harvest, but of an ill savour, and not wholesome. But the virtue of them was to help conception, being laid under the genial bed. That the women were wont to apply it at this day, out of an opinion of its prolific virtue." * Some writers have supposed the Dudaim to be neither more nor less than the truffle. Virey asserts it to be a species of Orchis ; and, indeed, considering the remarkable conformation of the root of this plant, f the slighdy spermatic odour of its farinaceous substance, as well as that of the flowers of another one belonging to the same family, an odour so similar to the emanations of an animal proverbial for its salaciousness, and to which its bearded spikes or ears give additional resemblance, the almost unbounded confidence which the ancients reposed in its aphrodisiacal virtues cannot appear surprising. One of the most extraordinary a phrodisia cs ufxm record is that reported to have been employed by the Amazons. The "Amazons," says Eustathius, J "broke either a leg or an arm of tlie captives they took in battle, and this they did, not only to prevent their attempts at escape, or their plotting, but also, and this more esiiecially, to render them more vigorous in the venereal conflict ; for, as they themselves burnt away the right breast of their female children in order that the right arm might • "Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem at Easter, a.d,, 1697." t Orchis is a Greek word signifying itUielt, a name given by the ancients to this plant on account of the supposed resemblance of its root to that or^an. J Fustalhii Corameuiarii ad Homerum, Vol. 1., p. 325, 403 — 9. Editio Lipsise, 1827. ANTI-APHRODISIACS. 75 become stronger from receiving additional nutriment, so they imagined that, similarly, the genital member would be strength- ened by the deprivation of one of the extremities, whether a leg or an arm. Hence, when reproached by the Scythians with the limping gait of her slaves, Queen Antianara replied, •' apiara xiu^o! oi0fr," " tlic lame best perform the act of love." Among the ancient Romans, it was impossible that philters, or l ove-potions , should not be introduced amid the general depravity so common in every class ; and hence we meet with frequent allusions to them in their writers. Thus, the emperor Julian, surnamed the Apostate, writing to his friend Callixines, observes " At enim inquies, Penelopes etiam amor et fides erga virum tempore cognita est. Et quis, tandem, inquam, in muliere amorem conjugis sui religioni ac pietari anteponet quam eon timid mandragorts bibesse judkitur ? "* " But you, Callixines, observe that Penelope's love to her husband was always thus manifested. To this I answer, who but he that has habitually drunk M., ostrea}, inde turpissimae ill» bestiae ^feminiE) ostrea comedebant, ut ad Venerem promptiores eaait^' ANTl-APHRODISIA CS. 85 Walilcli informs us that the ladies of his time had recourse, on such occasions, to the brains of the mustela piscis. The Sepia octopus was also in great repute, and Plautus, in his play of Lisina, introduces an old man who has just been purchasing come at the market. Appuleius, the celebrated author of the Afetamorphoseon de Asino aureo (Metamorphoses of the Golden Ass), and who lived in the 2nd centuiy, under the Antonines, having married a rich widow, was accused by her father ^milian, before Claudius Maximus, pro-Consul of Asia, of having employed sor cery and charms in order to gain her affections (a parallel case with that of Shakspear's Othello). The l ove-potion s alleged to have been administered were asserted to be chiefly composed of shell-fish, lobsters, sea hedge-hogs, spiced oysters, and cuttle-fish, the last of which was particularly famed for its stimulating qualities. Appuleius fulley exonerated him- self in his admirable Apologia ceu aratio de Magica, so esteemed for the purity of its style as to have been pronounced by Saint Augustine (De Civitate Dei, lib. xviii. c. 20) as copiosissima ei diserlissinta oralio. The reason adduced by^milian for believ- ing that Appuleius had chiefly used fish for the purpose was, that they must necessarily have great efficacy in exciting women to venery, inasmuch as Venus herself was born of the sea. Venette* supports this view when he says : " Nous avons I'exp^rience en France que ceux qui ne vivent presque que de coquillages et de poissons qui ne sont que de I'eau rassembMe, sont plus ardents Ji I'amour que les autres, en effet, nous nous y sentons bien plus y portes en Caresnte gu'en ioitte autre saison parce-qu'en ce temps id nous ne nous nouriis- • De la generation de rhomme, p. 272. S6 ///. APHRODISIACS AND sons que de poissons et cPkerdes qui sont des aiimenis composes debeaucoup d'eau. Should this be true, the Infallible (?) Church must have com- mitted an astounding blunder in thinking to mortify, for six weeks, the sinful lusts and affections of its dupes, by confining them, for the above period, to the exclusive use of such articles of food. There are also some aliments which, although not included in the class of analepti cs, are, nevertheless, reported to possess specific aphrodisiacal qualities ; such are fish, truffles, and chocolate. The following anecdote relative to this property in fish is related by Hecquet ; * " Sultan Saladin, wishing to ascertain the extent of the con- tinence of the dervishes, took two of them into his palace, and, during a certain space of time, had them fed upon the most suc- culent food. In a short time all traces of their self-inflicted severities were effaced, and their enibonpointhogaiXx to re-appear. In this state he gave them two Odalisquesf of surpassing beauty, but all whose blandishments and allurements proved ineffectual, for the two holy men came forth from the ordeal as pure as tlie diamond of Bejapore. % The Sultan still kept them in his palace, and, to celebrate their triumph, caused them to live upon a diet equally ndicrchi, but consisting entirely of fish. A few days afterwards they were again subjected to the united powers of youth and beauty, but this time nature was too strong, and the too happy ceno- bites forgot, in the arms of voluptuousness, their vows of con- tinence and chastity, "Traite des dispenses et de Carfeme, Paris, 1709, en 12010, r^imprimfi trois fois. t Names given to the female slaves or concubines in the harem of the Sulian. X A large province of the Deccan, said to have been famous, in ancient times, for its diamond mines. ANTI-APHRODISIA CS. 87 This peculiar property in fish has been attributed to the pre- sence of phosphorus, which is known to exist somewhat plenti- fully in their substance, and has also been discovered in their roes in a simple state of combination. Now, phosphorus is one of the most powerful stimulants : it acts upon the generative organism in a manner to cause the most violent priapisms ; but this principle does not act alone, and there must also be taken into account the different seasonings and condiments which form the basis of most culinary preparations to which fish are subjected, and which are all taken from the class of irritants. The prolific virtues of fish have, no doubt, been greatly ex- aggerated, and it is certain that too much importance has been given to the observation made (rather upon slight grounds) by travellers as to the abundant population of ichlhyophagic nations ; nor would it be difficult to adduce facts to prove to the incredulous that the continuous use of fish excites lasciviousness in such persons only as are constitutionally inclined thereto. The following instances sufficiently establish the aphrodisiacal qualities of phosphorus. A drake belonging to a chemist having drunk water out of a copper vessel which had contained phos- phorus, ceased not gallanting his females till he died. An old man to whom a few drops only of phosphoric ether had been administered, experienced repeated and imperious venereal wants which he was compelled to satisfy. Leroy and Battatz, two celebrated French physicians of the last century, tried the effects of phosphorus upon themselves, with similar results. Sensa- tions of the same kind are said to be experienced by persons whose occupation requires the frequent handling of this drug. It may thus be considered as satisfactorily proved that the above substance is essentially an energetic stimulant of the genital organs ; but, should still further evidence be required. >^ 88 ///. APHRODISIACS AND it may be found in the fact that the administration of it, even, in small doses, has been productive of the most horrible and fatal results, instances of which are recorded in many medical works both foreign and English, but more particularly in those of Brera, Magendie, and others. The erotic properties of truffles and mushrooms are con- sidered by most writers as better established than those of fish. The ancient Romans were well acquainted with truffles, and obtained them from Greece and Africa, especially from the province of Libya, the fungi found there being particularly esteemed for their delicacy and flavour. In modern times, also, the truffle is regarded as the diamond of the kitchen, being highly valued for its capability of exciting the genesiac sense, it being a positive aphrodisiac which disposes men to be exacting and women complying. • The following instance of its effects is given by Brillat Savarin, f to whom the circumstances were communicated, in confidence, by the lady who was the subject of them : " Je soupai," says she, "un jour chez moi en trio avec mon mari et un de ses amis dont le non etait V . . . . C'^tait un beau garqon et ne manquant pas d'esprit et venait souvent chez , moi, mais il ne m'avatt jamais rien dit qui put le falre regarder I comme mon amant, et s'il me fesait la cour, c'^tait d'une maniere si envelopp^e qu'il n'y avait qu'une sotte qui eut pfi ] s'en fdcher. II paraissait, ce jour la, destine i me tenir cora- pagnie pendant le reste de la soiree, car mon mari avait un • That Coryphseus of voluptuaries, George IV., so highly appreciated this quiiliiy in truffles, that his Ministers at the courts of Turin, Naples, Florence, i5-c., were specially instructed to forward by a state messenger to the Royal Kitchen any of those fungi that might be found superior in size, delicacy or t Physiologie du Gout, par Brillat Savarin, Paris, 1859. ANTI-APHRODISIACS. 89 rendezvous et devait nous quitter bientdt. Notre souper avait pour base une petite volaill truffee, Les trutles ^taient delici-- euses, et quoique je les alme beaucotip, je me contins, non- obstant ; je ne bus aussi qii'un seul verre de Champagne, ayant quelque pressentiment que la soiree ne se passerait pas sans eveiiemeiit. Bientfit man mari partit et me laissa seule avec V . . . . qu'il regardait comme tout k fait sans consequence. La conversation roula d'abord sur des sujets indifferents, mais elle ne tarda pas Ji prendre une tournure plus serieuse et plus interessante. V fut successivement flatteur, expansif, affectueux, caressant, et voyant que je ne faisais que plaisanter de tant de belles choses, il devint si pressant que je ne pus plus me tromper de ses pretensions. Alors, je me reveillai comme d'une songe et me d^fendis avec autant plus de franchise que mon cceur ne me disait rien pour lui. II persistait avec une action que pouvait devenir tout k fait oflfensante ; j'eus beau- coup de peine de la remener, et j'avone, a ma honte, que toute esp^rance ne lui serait pas interdite. Enfin, il me quitta, j'allai me coucher et dormis tout d'un somme. Mais le lendemain fut le jour du jugement ; j'examinai ma condulte de la veille, et je la trouvai reprehensible. J'aurals du arreter V . . .. des les premieres phrases, et ne pas me prater a une conversation qui ne pr^sageait rien de bon. Ma fiert^ auratt dd sonner, crier, me fScher, faire, enfin, tout ce que je ne fis pas. Que vous dirai je, Monsieur, je mis tout cela sur le compte des truffes, etje siiis r^element persuadde qu'elles m'avaient donn^ une predis- position dangereuse, et si je n'y renonce pas (ce qui eut ^t^ trop rigoureux) du moins je n'en mange jamais sans que le plaisir qu'elles me causent ne soit m^le d'un peu de di^fiance." The mushroom was also equally well known as the truffle to the ancient Romans for its aphrodisiacal qualities. Thus, Martial says : n 90 ///. APHRODISIACS AND " QuLim sit anus conjux et sint tibi mortiia membra, Nil aliud bulbis quam sater esse potes." " " If envious age lelax the nuptial knot, Thy food be mushrooms, and thy feast shalot," This bulb was believed by the ancients to be so decided a stimulant, that it was always served up, together with pepper and pine-nuts, at the wedding dinner. An immoderate use of chocolate was, in the t/lh century, considered so powerful an aphrodisiac that Jean Franco Raucher strenuously enforced the necessity of forbidding the monks to drink it, adding that if such an interdiction had been laid upon it at an earlier period, the scandal with which that sacred order had been assailed would have been prevented. It is a singular fact that, fearful of losing their character, or, what, perhaps, was dearer to them, their chocolate, the worthy cenobites were so dilligent in suppressing Raucher's work that four copies only of it are said to be in existence. The history of the middle ages abounds with complaints of the lubricity, gluttony, and drunkenness of the monks, vices which are described as being their ruin, in the following pithy distich : " Sunt tria nlgrorum quze vestant res monacliorum, Renes et venter et pocula sumpta frequenter." f " Three things to ruin monks combine — Venery, gluttony, and wine." A monk who was a great enemy to adultery, was one day preaching against it, and grew so warm in his argument, and took so much pains to convince his congregation of his own abhorrence of it, that at last he broke out in the following solemn declaration : • Manial, Epigram, lib. xiii. epig. 34. t Ducang^, Glossaire. ANTT-APHRODISIACS. 91 " Yea, my brethren, I had rather, for the good of my sou!, have to do with ten maids every month, than, in ten years, to touch one married woman ! " The celebrity they acquired in the field of Venus may readily be imagined from a quatrain that was affixed in a conspicuous part of the Church of St. Hyacinthc, and which runs thus : " Femmes qui d^sirez de devenir enceinte Addressez cy vos vosux au grand Saint Hyacinthe, Et lout ce que pour vous le Saint ne pourra faire Les motJUS de cdans ponrronl y satisfaire" * You ladies who for pregnancy do wish To great St. Hyacinthe your prayers apply, And what his Saintship cannot accomplish The vionks within xuill surely satisfy" It would have been well had these holy men been contented with these, comparatively, venial indulgences. The following macaronic epigram, however, shows that they were but too much addicted to the Amour Socratique : " Let a friar of some order tecum pcrnoctare Either thy wife or thy daughter hie vult violare, Or thy son he will prefer, sicut fortem fortis, God give such a friar pain in Inferni portis." f But the open violation of their monastic vows, especially that of chastity, sometimes subjected monks to very severe punishment, a singular instance of which is recorded by Thevet,;!: who, on account of the inimitable quaintness of his language and style, must be allowed to tell his own story : • J. H.Meibomius de flagrorum usuin Remedica et Venerea, Paris, 1792 p. '25- f See Macaron^ana, par M. Octave Delepiewe, Paris, [852, p. 3. t Thevit, Portraits des Vies des Hommes Uluslres, Vol. I., p. 13, fol, edit., Paris, 1584. 92 ///. APHRODISIACS AND " Phillippus Bourgoin, grild Prieur de I'Abbaye de Cluny, voyant I'insoleiice, ribleries et putasseries que menoient certains religieux de I'abbaye de Cluny les fist appeller particulierement, . I leur demonstra le tort qu'ilz se faisoieiit et k la sainctet^ de leur ordre, et appercevant qu'ilz continuoient leur train, en plelne voute ou assemblee, qu'ils font en leur chapitre, leur denon^a, pu'estat en son oratoireSainct Hugues s'estoit apparu a luy, le chargeant de leur fair entendre qu'ilz amendassent leur vie, ou autremfit, qu'ilz tomberoient en son indignation, les ayant en telle verdeure envoya querir des maistres operateurs secretment en son logis et mada querir une nuict tous les plus mauvais gar^ons de Moynes, les uns aprds les autres, qui n'estaient plut6t entrez au logis du Prieur qu'6 leur badoit les yeux, et apr^s les maistres ieurs neit^ilt bragardement \eurs J>e/iies bmir- settes de ce qui les faisoit hennir apres Ieurs voluptez et apres les renvoiet en Ieurs chambres,//MJ legiers de deux grains qu'ilz tCetoi&t aitparavattly les ayant chappSnez. Apres telle execu- tion le bruict courut qu'o avoit veu Sainct Hugues se pour- meant pr^s de I'enfermerie de I'abbaye, qui fist croire aux pauvres Moynes hongres, que par adresse autre qu'humaine, ils avoi^t ainsi esti estropies de leur virilitc." To these [wor monks may, however, be applied the sly remark of Hume, upon a similar act of cruelty perpetuated, though for a far more innocent cause, by Geoffry, the father of Henry II,, upon the prior and chapter of Seez in Normandy, viz., that " of the pain and danger they might justly complain, yet, sinee they had vowed chastity, he deprived them of a I superfluous treasure." • If the properties of ambergris be less potent than those of , phosphorus, they are certainly less fatal. According to Bos- • Hume's Hisi. of England, Vol. I., p. 34S. k ANTI-APHRODISIACS. 93 well, • three grains of the former suffice to produce a marked acceleration of the pulse, a considerable development of muscular strength, a greater activity in the intellectual faculties, and a disposition to cheerfulness and venerea! desires. The same author also says that it is a medicine which can, for a short time, restore an effete old man to juvenility, f The ancients reposed great confidence in the virtues of this drug, employing it as a renovator of the vital powers and of the organs, whose energy had been exhausted by age or by excess ; and throughout the East this perfume still maintains a reputa- tion for life- preserving qualities. Madame Du Barry, ;{: the infamous mistress of Louis XV., Is reported to have availed herself of its aphrodisiacal qualities • Dissertatio Inaug'uralis de .\mbra, § iv. p. 36. t Medicamentum quod non solum potenter stimulat, sed vel effcetum senem, pro brevi tempore, ad juvenCutem iterum restituit. Hid. § viii., p. 44. X Nee dans une condition obscure, voute au libertinage des sa plus tendre jeunesse, autant par g-oOt que par ^lat, Made. Du Barry ne put offrir k son augTjste amani, malgre la fleur tie la jeunesse et les brillants appas dont elle ctoit encore pourvue, que les resies de la plus vile canaille, de la prostitution." Vie privee des maltresses de Louis XV., p. 153.— "You are no doubt curious to hear an opinion of Madame Du Barri's beauty from the lips of one who has seen her both in her days of prosperity and after her downfall, She was a person of small, almost diminutive stature, extremely frail and delicate in feature, which saved her from being vulgar ; but even from ihe first, she always wore that peculiarly/.wif look which she oweil to ayouih of dissipation. a maturity of unbounded indulgence. At the period of my visit she was abojt thirty-six years of age, but, from her child-like form and delicacy of coun- tenance, appeared much younger, and h-^r gum/xii/a and unrestrained gestures of supreme delight on having, as she said, quel'/u'un A f/uif'irler, did not seem displaced. Alrhough alone, and evidently not in expectation of visitors, her toilet was brilliant and rethirchi. the result of the necessity of killing time." — '■ Talleyrand Papers." 94 ///. APHRODISIACS AND in order to stimulate the jaded appetites of her royal paramour. " L'attachement du roi pour Madame Du Barry* kii est venu des efforts prodigieux qu'tlle !ui fit faire an moyen d'aii bap- tfeme (lavement) ambre dont elle se parfuma interieurement tous les jours. Ou ajoute qu'elle joignit a cela un secret dont on ne se sert pas encore en bonne socicte." ' Piquant as is this anecdote, the key to it is equally so. " Les mouches cantarides, i diabolini I'essence de giroflee, les bap- temes ambr^s, etc., sont des inventions de notre siecle dont la dcbilite cut ete incurable sans ces secours, I'auteur ne peut rendre le secret de la manvaise sod^i^,dont se sert la Comtesse, sans blesser la bonne, tout ce qu'il peut dire decemment est que ce secret est un diminutif des erreurs philosophiques," f The old pharmacopoeia are amply furnished with formula of which amber constitutes the base. These recipes are generally designated by names which, to a certain extent, indicate the particular use to which they are destined by their makers ; thus, France formerly boasted her ■' Tablettes dc MagnanimiU" or ■ " Eledtiaire Satyrion," and " Vn poudre de joie." Troches, or odoriferous lozenges, to which the ancients gave the pretty name of " Avuncuke Cypria" were, and perhaps are still, sold in Paris under that of " Seraglio Pastilles.'" Ambergris forms the basis of these, as it also does of the Indian pastilles called " Cachunde," and which were equally in repute, Zactus Lusitanus % states that they were composed of bole Tuccinum, musk, ambergris, aloes-wood, red and yellow sanders (ptero- , * Espion de la Coar. t Gazetier Cuirass^, on Anecdotes Scandaleuses de la Cour de France. X In his " Praxis Medica Admiranda," wherein he also gives the formula of an electuary ad excitandum lentigimm nuUi secundum, p. 295, Observ. XCI., as well as a recipe for pilfs ad Coi'/lls igmrDiam, CXIU , p, 297. ANTI-APHRODISIA CS. 95 carpus santalinus) mastic, sweet-flag; (calamus aromaticus) galanga, cinnamon, rhubarb, Indian myrobalon, absynth, and of some pounded precious stones, which, however, impart no additional quaUty to the composition. Speaking of this com- position, the Encyclopcedia Perthensis describes It as " a medi- cine highly celebrated among the Chinese and Indians; it is comoosed of ambergris and several other aromatic ingredients, perfumes, medicinal earths, and precious stones. It imparts a sweetness to the breath, is a valuable medicine in all nervous complaints, and is esteemed as a prolonger of life and an exciter to veneiy." Riviere I gives us the following formula for a potion whose virtue is indisputable. " Take of amber, half a drachm ; musk, two scruples ; aloes, one drachm and a half ; pound them all together, pour upon the mass a sufficient quantity of spirits of wine so that the liquor may cover it to the height of about five fingers' breadth; expose it to sand heat, filter and distil it, close it hermetically, and administer it in broth in the dose of three or five drops. This liquor is also advantageous when mixed with syrup, prepared as follows : — Take of cinnamon water, four ounces : orange and rose water, each six ounces. and sugar candy q.s. Musk taken internally is said by many physicians to be almost equal to ambergris for its aphrodisiacal qualities. Ex- ternally applied, this substance produces very singular pheno- mena. Borelli details the case of a man " qui s'etant frotte le penis avec du muse avant de se livrer k I'exercise des fonctions genitales, resta uni avec sa femme sans pouvoir s'en separer. " Encyclopcedia Parthensis, Ariicle Cachunde, t See his Premier Traile de I'homme et de son essenlielle anatomie, avec les elements et ce qui est en eux, de ses maladies, medicine et absolus remedes, etc., Paris, IS8S. 96 ///. APHRODISIACS AND II fallait, dsns cette position lui donner une quantiti^ de lave- ments afiii de ramoller les parties qui s'etaient extraordinaire- ment tumifiees."" Diermerbreek and Schiirigius gave similar instances. The effects of musk are, therefore, almost equal to those produced by certain plants, as recorded by Theophrastus : " Esse herbas quse vel ad iexagesimum coilum vim pntstant sed at demum secernitur sanguis." t Weickard says that by means of this drug he resuscitated the genital power in a man who had nearly completed his eightieth year. But, of all aphrodisiacs, the most certain and terrible in its effects are cantliarides, commonly known as Spanish flies. That they exercise a powerful and energetic action upon the organization and stimulate, to the utmost, the venereal desire, is but too true. The effects, however, which these insects, when applied as a blister upon the skin, are known to produce, are insignificant when compared with their intense action upon the stomach when taken internally ; nor is it the stomach only which is affected by them : the bladder experiences an irritation exceeding even that caused by the severest strangury. To these succeed perforation of the stomach, ulcers throughout the entire length of the intestinal canal, dysentery, and, lastly, death in the midst of intolerable agonies. Medical works abound with observations concerning the fatal effects of cantharides when unduly administered, whether from ignorance or for exciting the venereal appetite. The two following cases are recorded by Pabrol in his " Observations Anatomiques " : En 1752 nous fumes visiter un pauvre homme d'Organ en I Provence atteint du plus horrible satyriasis qu'on saurait voir j et [jenser. Le fait est tel, 11 avail les quartes, pour en guerir J " Cern. 2. t See Celius, lib. xiv,, cap. 3. AN Tl-APHRODISIA CS. 97 preiid conseil d'une sorci^re, laquelle lui fait une potion d'une once de semences d'orties, de deux dachmcs de cantharides, d'une drachme et demi de caboule et autres, ce qui le rendit si furieux k I'acte vi^-nerien que sa femme nous jura son Dieu. g7i'i/ Cavait chevaucMc, dans denx ?iiois, qitatre vingt sept fois, sans y comprendre plus de dix Jois qu'il s'lHait corrompu lui- meme. Dans le temps que nous consultions, le pauvre homme spermatisa trois fois a notre presence, embrassa le pied du lit, et agitant centre lui comme si c'eust ^t6 sa femme. Ce spec- tacle nous etonn et nous hita k lui faire des remedes pour abattre cette furieusse chaleur, mais quel remede qu'on lui eust faire, se passa-t-il le pas." " Un m(^decin a Orange, nomme Chauvel avait etc appelle en 1758 k Caderousse, petite ville proche de sa residence, pour voir un homme atteint d'une maladie du mSme genre. A I'entree de la maison il trouve la femme du dJt malade> laquelle se plaignit k lui de la furieuse lubricite de son man, qui Pavait chci'tiiichc'e quarante fois pour une nuit^ et avait toutes les parties gonfl^es, etant contrainte les lui montrer afiu qu'il lui ordonnast les remedes pour abattre I'inflammation. Le mal du marl etant venu d'un breuvage semblable a I'autre que lui fut donne par une femme qui gardait I'hopital, pour guerir la fievre tierce qui I'affligeoit, de laquelle il tomba dans une telle fureur qu'il fallait I'attacher comme s'il eust ete pos- s£de du diable. Le vicaire du lieu fut present, pour I'exhorter i la presence m^me du Sieur Chauvel, lesquels il priait le laisser mourir avec ie plaisir, les femmes le plierent dans un linsseuil moiiille en eau et en vinaigre, ou il fut laisse jusqu'au le lende- main qu'elles allaient le visiter, mais sa furieuse chaleur fut bien abattue et eteinte, car elles le trouverent roid mort, la bouche b^ante, montrant les dents, et son membre gangrene." 98 ///. APHRODISIACS AND Pare also relates that a courtezan, having sprinkled the meat given by her to one of her lovers, with pounded cantharides, the wretched youth was seized with a violent priapism and loss of blood at the anus, of which he died. Ferdinand the Catholic, of Castile, owed his death to the effects of a philter administered to him by his queen, Germaine de Foix, in the hope of enabling him to beget an heir to the crowns of Aragon, Navarre, and Naples. " Plusieurs dames," says Mignot," "attachees a !a Relne, lui indiquerent un breu- vage qu'il fallait, disoit on donner a Ferdinand pour ranimer ses forces. Cette princese fit composer ce remcde, sous ses yeux, et le presenta au roi qui desirait, plus qu'elle, d'avoir un fils, Depuis ce jour, la sante de Ferdinand s'afifaiblit, au point qu'il ne la recouvra jamais." The life of the celebrated Wallenstein, one of the heroes of the " Thirty years' war," was for a long time endangered from the effects of a potion administered to him by his countess. " De retour dans sa patrie, il (Wallenstein) sut inspirer une vive passion Ji une riche veuve de la famille de Wiezkova, et eut I'adresse de se faire prefere a des rivaux d'un rang plus cleve ; mais cette union fut troublee par I'extreme jalousie de sa femme ; ou pretend meme qu'elle fit usage de philtres que penserent compromettre le sante de son mari,"f Cardinal Dubois, J the favourite and minister of Philip Duke of Orleans, Regent of France, during the minority of Louis ' Histoire de Ferdinand et Isabelle, Tom Il„ 336. Paris, 1766, t Biographic Universelle, Art. Wallenstein, X Detested by the Parisians, Dubois was the object of innumerable cari- catures, of which the most sanglanle vs.% one representing him " k genous aux pieds d'une fille de joie qui prenait de ce sale ecoulement qui afflig-e !es femmes, tous les mois, pour lui en rougir sa calotte et le faire Cardinal." See lirotika Biblion. Paris, 1792, p. 52. ANTI-APHRODISIACS. 99 XV., gives the following amusing account of a love potion, to the powerful effects of which he considerdd himself indebted for his existence. " An old bachelor, of Brivas, had engaged to marry a young lady of only sixteen years of age. The night before the wedding he assembled the wise heads of his family for the purpose of consulting upon the best means of enabling him to perform his part creditably in the approaching amorous conflict. Opinions were divided : some maintained that nature was adequate to the occasion at any age, while others recom- mended a certain preparation in the Pharmacopeia, which would amply supply the defect of youth in a sexaginary husband. The old gentleman chose, without hesitation, the surest and speediest of these two chances of success. The prescription was sent to the shop of my worthy father, who was an apothe- cary in the town, and he accordingly immediately set to work, and made up a draught which would have awakened desire even in Methusaleh himself. This valuable philter was not to be sent to the party till the next day. It was late, and my mother," continues the Cardinal, " desired her husband to retire to rest and he, tired with his day's work, quickly undressed himself, blew out his candle, and deposited himself, like a loving husband, by the side of his dear spouse. Awakening in the middle of the night, he complained of being excessively thirsty, and his better half, roused from her slumbers, got up in the dark, and groping about for something wherewith to quench his thirst, her hand encountered the invigorating philter, which it truly proved to be, for I came into the world precisely nine months after that memorable night."* Although love-potions and philters, as well as the other pre- parations had recourse to, for animating and arousing the • M^moires du Cardinal Dubois, vol. I., p. 3. loo ///. APHRODISIACS AND organs for reproduction frequently owe, as we have shewn, their advantages to cantharides, and are, but to often productive of terrible effects, yet it cannot be denied that when adminstered by a skilful, cautious, and experienced physician, they have restored the desired vigour when all other means have failed. The flesh of the Schinck (scincus) an amphibious animal of the lizard species, and sometimes of the land lizard, or croco- dile, is said, when reduced to powder and drunk with sweet wine, to act miraculously in exciting the venereal action ; it is also prepared for the same object in the form of the electuary known by the name of Diasatyrion. j^lius recommends that in order to cause the erection of the virile organ, the flesh of this animal should be taken from the vicinity of its genital apparatus,* It is a well known fact that the Egj'ptian peasants carried their lizards to Cairo, whence they were forwarded, via Alexandria, to Venice and Marseilles. This species of lizard, which feeds upon aromatic plants was also used as an aphro- disiac by the Arabs, and the well known anti-poisonous quality of its flesh had caused it, in more ancient times, to be employed as an ingredient in the far-famed Mithridates, or antidote to poison. Browne informs us t " that in Africa, no part of the Materia Medica is so much in requisition as those which stimu- late to venereal pleasure. The Lacerta scincus in powder, and a thousand other articles of the same kind, are in continual demand." The plant Chervri (sandix ceropolium) is also accounted as capable of exciting amorous propensities, so much so that Tiberius, the Roman emperor, the most lascivious, per- haps, of men, is said to have exacted a certain quantity of it from • ^lius Telrabilis. I., Disc. Chap. 32 and jj. t Browne's Travels in Africa, etc., p. 343. -* ■*- ANTI-APHRODISIA CS. 101 the Germans, by way of tribute, for the purpose of rendering himself vigorous with his women and catamites ; and Venette says that the Swedish ladies give it to their husbands when they find them flag in their matrimonial duties. • But it was upon the plant called Satyrion (orchis mascula) that those who required aphrodisiacal remedies rested their most sanguine hopes. This plant, Theophrastus assures us, possesses so wonderful a properly of exciting venery that a mere application of it to the parts of generation will enable a man to accomplish the act of love twelve times successively. Speaking of this plant Venette f says that the herb which the Indian King Androphyl sent to King Antiochus was that it was so efficacious in exciting men to amorous enjoyment as to surpass in that quality, all other plants, the Indian who was the bearer of it assuring the king " qu'elle lui avait donnii de la vigueur pour soixante dix embrassements," but he owned "qu'aux deriiiers efforts ce qu'il rendait n'etait plus de semen ce." Matthoile, however, observing that those persons who made use of it did not appear much given to lasciviousness, concluded that we had lost the true satyrion of the ancients; but, it is nevertheless certain, notwithstanding so adverse an opinion, that this plant long preserved its reputation, and was recom- mended by all botanists for its aphrodisiac potency. Of all the species of this plant the one popularly known as dog-stones is reputed to possess the greatest virtue The Turks have also their Satyrion (orchis morio), which grows upon the mountains near Constantinople, and which they * La gen^ralioi p. 376. t Ibid, p, 23a, de Thomme, ou tableau de i'a : conjugal. Tom. U I02 ///. APHRODISIACS AND make use of to repair their strength, and stimulate them to the generative act. From this root is made the salcp of which the inhabitants of Turkey, Persia, and Syria, are extremely fond, ' being looked upon as one of the greatest restoratives and pro- vocatives to venery in the whole vegetable world. But besides the aphrodisaical qualities attributed to this plant by the above people, they give it credit for other ones, which good opinion experience has confirmed, and therefore whenever they under- take a long voyage, they never omit to carry it with them as a specific against all diseases. Modern practitioners likewise com- mend its restorative, mucilaginous and demulcent qualities as rendering it of considerable utility, particularly in sea scurvy, diarrhoea, dysentery, and stone or gravel. In addition to this property, salep also possesses the very singular one of conceal- ing the taste of sea water, hence to prevent the dreadful cala- mity of perishing by thirst at sea it has been proposed that the powder of this plant should form part of the provisions of every ship's com]3any. Borax is likewise considered to possess peculiar aphrodisiacal qualities. " II penetre," says Venette, " toutes les parties de notre corps et en ouvre tous les vaisseaux, et jiar la tenuitt^ de sa substance, il eottduii aux parties gt-nitales tout ce qui est capable de nouT servir de mati^re \ la semence. * The plant Rocket (Brasica eruca) has likewise been especi- ally celebrated by the ancient poets for possessing the virtue of restoring vigour to the sexual organs, on which account it was consecrated to and sown around, the statue of Priapus ; thus Columella says : — • VeneUe Getit-ralion de I'hommt.'. To ANTI-APHRODISIACS. 103 " Et qute frugifero seritur vicina Priapo Excitet ut veneri tardos eruca marltos."* " Th' eruca, Priapus, near thee we sow To rouse to duty husbands who are slow." Virgil attributes to it the same quality, designing it as — " . . , Et venerem revocans eruca morantem."f " Th' eruca, plant which gives to jaded appetite the spur." Lobel % gives an amusing account of tlie effects of this plant upon certain monks in the garden of whose monastery it was sown, an infusion of it being daily doled out to them under the inipression that its cheering and exhihrating qualities would rouse them from the state of inactivity and sluggishness so common to the inmates of such establishments. But, alas I the continual use of it produced an effect far more powerful than had been contemplated by the worthy itinerant monk who had recommended it, for the poor cenobites were so stimulated by its aphrodisiacal virtues that, transgressing alike their monastic wall and vows, they sought relief for their amorous desires in die fond embraces of the women residing in the neighbourhood. Salt, mala Bacchica^ Cubebs, Surag, |) and Radix Chinae (bark), were also regarded by ancient physicians as powerful • De cultu horiorucn, v. 108. t Moretum, v. 85. X Mag. Nat., Lib. vii. § Mala Bacchica lanta olim in amoribus prtevalerunt, ul coronse ex illis statUBB Bacchi ponereniur. " Surag radis ad coitum summe facit : it quii comedat aut in/usionem bibal, HUBibrum iuk'te erigilur. Leo Afric, Lib. IX,, cap, ult., p. 30a. 104 ///. APHRODISIACS AND aphrodisiacs. Gomez* asserts of the first of these substances, that women who much indulge in it are thereby rendered more salacious, and that, for this reason, Venus is said to have arisen from the sea ; whence the epigram : " Unde tot in Veneta scortorum millia cur sunt ? In promptu causa est. Venus orta mari." '* in Venice why so many punks abound? The reason sm"e is easy to be found : Because, as learned sages all agree. Fair Venus' birth-place was the salt^ salt sea." To the last of the above-mentioned plants, Baptista Porta ascribes the most wonderful powers, his words being : Planta qute non solum edentibus, sed et gemtale languentibus tantum valet, ut coire summe desiderant, quoties fere velint, possint ; alios duodecies profecisse, alios ad sexagirita vices pervenisse, refert. f Certain condiments are also aphrodisiacal, acting as they, undoubtedly do, as powerful stimulants. Thus Tourtelle and Peyrible assure us that pepper is a provocative to venereal pleasures, while Gesner and Chappel cured an atony of the virile member of three or four years' duration, by repeated immersions of that organ in a strong infusion of mustard seed. The principal ingredient of the Bang so much used by tlie Indians, as well as of the Maslac of the Turks is a species of the hemp plant. The Indians, says Acosta, J masticate the • Gomez (Ferdinand) of Ciudad Real, a celebrated physician, bom 1 3S8, died 1457. t Mag. Nat. Lib, VII., c. 16, X Tractado de las drog:as y medicinas de las Indias Orientales chap. LXI., p. 360, Burgos, IS7S. ANTI-APHRODISIACS. 105 seeds and leaves of several species of that plant, in order to increase their vigour in the venereal congress, and very fre- quently combine with it, ambergris, musk, and sugar, prepar- ing it in the form of an electuary, u" has been remarked, moreover, that even in our own climate, the caged birds that are fed with hemp seed are the most amorously inclined. According to Browne * whole fields are in Africa sown with hashish, the bang of the East Indies, for the purpose of being used as a stimulant to amorous dalliance. It is used in a variety of forms, but in none, it is supposed, more effectually than what, in Arabic, is called Maijiln, a kind of electuary, in which both men and women indulge to excess. It is said that the Chinese, domesticated at Batavia, avail themselves of a certain electuary for the purpose of stimulating their appetite for sexual intercourse. This preparation, called by them Affion, is chiefly composed of opium, and it is asserted that its effect is so violent that a brutal passion supervenes and continues throughout the night, the female being obliged to flee from the too energetic embraces of her lover, f Narcotics, in general, and especially, opium, have been con- sidered as direct aphrodisiacs, an opinion which, if well founded, would enable us to account more easily for those agreeable sensations by which the use of these substances is followed. But it is very probable that narcotics act \x\ion the genital organs in no other way than tliey do upon the other ones, that is to say, they certainly do stimulate them, but only propor- tionately to the increase of force in the circulation of the blood and to the power or tone of the muscular fibre. It is also very •Travels in Africa, &c,, p. 341, t Lignac. A physical view of man and woman in a state of marriage. Vol. I,, p, 190. lo6 ///. APHRODISIACS AND probable that the voluptuous impressions superinduced by them depend upon the circumstances under which those persons are, who habitually indulge in them, and that they are connected with other impressions or with particular ideas which awaken them. If, for instance, in a Sultan reclining upon his sofa, the intoxication of opium is accompanied by images of the most ravishing delight, and if it occasions in him that sweet and lively emotion which the anticipation of those delights awakens throughout the whole nervous system, the same inebriation is associated in the mind of a Janizary or a Spahi with ideas of blood and carnage, with paroxysms, the brutal fury of which has certainly, nothing in common with the tender emotions of love. It is in vain to allege in proof of the aphrodisical qualities of opium the state of erection in which the genital members of Turks are found when lying dead on a field of battle, * for this state depends upon, or is caused by, the violent spasm or uni- versal convulsive movements with which the body is seized in the moment of death : the same phenomenon frequently appears in persons who suffer hanging. In warm countries, it is the concomitant of death from convulsive diseases, and in our own climate, it has been observed in persons who have died from apoplectic attacks. The power which certain odours possess of exciting venereal desires admits not the slightest doubt, at least as far as the inferior animals are concerned. Nearly all the mammifera ex- hale or emit, in the rutting season, peculiar emanations serving to announce from afar to the male the presence of the female and to excite in him the sexual desire. Facts have been observed ■TurccB ad Levenzinum contra Comitem Ludovicutn Souches pugfnantes, opio exaltati turpiter csesi, et octo mille numero occisi, mmtuioi rigidiu tulere. Christen, Opium Hist. ANTI-APHRODISIACS. 107 ^^| with respect to insects even, which cannot be otherwise accounted ^^H for than by odorous effluvia. If, for instance, the female of the ^^^| bombyx butterfly, be placed in a box accurately closed, it will ^^^| not be long before several males will be seen flying around the ^^H prison, and which could not possibly have known, by means of ^^^| their visual organs, the presence of their captive Dulcinea. ^^^| Now the question is, does anything analogous take place in our ^^^| own species ? Many authors assert that there does, and among ^^^| them Virey, who, speaking of such exhalations, says : " L'ex- ^^H tr€me propret^ des hommes et dcs femmes, I'habitude de se ^^^| baigner et de changer souvent de linge font disparaitre les odeurs ^^^| g^nitales. • . . . . On doit aussi remarquer que la haire ^^^| des C^nobites, la robe des Capuclns, le froc des moines, les ^^^^ v^tements rudes et mal-propres de diverses corporations religieuses exposent ceux qui les portent i de fortes tenta- tions, i cause de la quality stimulante et de la sueur f^tide dont ^taient bient6t empreintes toutes ces sortes d'habillements." f " Odours," observes Cabanis J " act jxiwer- fully upon the nervous system, they prepare it for all the jileasu- rable sensations ; they communicate to it that slight disturbance or commotion which appears as if inseperable from emotions of delight, all which may be accounted for by their exercising a • h was, perhaps, the knowledge of this fact that suggested 10 La Fontaine the lines : — " Un muletier i ce jeu Vaut trois rois." " To play at which game, I'm sure it is clear, Three kings are no match for one muleteer,"' tHistoire Naturelle du Genre Humain. Tom. II., p, 123. J Cabanis, RappOrt, &c.. Tom. 11., p. 89. io8 ///. APHRODISIACS AND special action upon those organs whence originate the most rapturous pleasure of which our nature is susceptible. In Infancy- its influence is almost nothing, in old age it is weak, its true efKJch being that of youth, that of love." It is certain that among most nations, and from the remotest antiquity, voluptuous women strengthened their amorous pro. pensities by the use of various perfumes, but particularly of musk, to which has been attributed the power of exciting noc- turnal emissions. The great Henry IV., of France, no novice in love affairs, was opposed to the use of odours, maintaining that the parts of generation should be allowed to retain their natural scent, which, in his opinion, was more effectual than all the perfumes ever manufactured by art. Another aphrodisiacal remedy, which for a long time enjoyed a great reputation was the penis of the stag, which was supposed to possess the virtue of furnishing a man with an abundance of seminal fluid. Perhaps the reason why the ancients attributed this property to the genital member of that animal was from the supposition that it was the receptacle of the bile ; that the abundance and acrid quality of this fluid caused lasciviousness, and that the stag being transported by an erotic furor during the rutting season, he was the most salacious of animals, and con- sequendy that the genital organ of this quadruped would, when applied to man's generative apparatus, impart thereto consider- able heat and irritation. A somewhat similar opinion respecting the horse appears to have obtained among the Tartars, if we may judge from the following account given by Foucher d'Obsonville : • " Les palefreniers amenent un cheval de sept a * Essais philosophiques sur les moiurs de divers animaux i5trangers, ANTI-APHRODISIACS. 109 hnit ans, mais nerveux, bien nourri et en bon 6tat. On lui pr^- sente une jument comme pour la saiUir, et cependant on le retient de faijon ^ bien irriter ses idees. Enfin, dans le moment ou il semble qu'il va lui etre libre de s'elancer dessus, I'on fait adroitment passer la verge dans un cordon dontle noeud coulant est rapproche au ventre, ensuitc, saisissant a I'instant ou I'anima! parait dans sa plus forte Erection, deux hommes qui tiennentles extriJmites du cordon le tirent avec force et, sur le champ, le membre est separc du corps au dessus le noeud coulant. Par ce moyen, les esprits sent retenus et fixes dane cette partle la- quelie rests gonflce ; aussitdt on la lave et la fait cuire avec divers aromatiques et^piceries aphrodisiaques." The means of procuring the vigour necessary for sexual delights has also been sought for in certain preparations cele- brated by the alchymlsts. Struck by the splendour of gold, its incorruptibility, and other rare qualities, some physicians imagined that this metal might introduce into the animal econ- omy an inexhaustible source of strength and vitality ; while empirics, abusing the credulity of the wealthy and the voluptuous made them pay exorbitantly for aphrodisiacal preparations in which they assured their dupes that gold, under different forms, was an ingredient. Among innumerable other instances, is that of a French lady who, to procure herself an heir, strove to rean- imate an exhausted constitution by taking daily in soup what she was made to believe was potable gold, to the value of 50 francs, a fraud to expose which it suffices to say that the largest dose of perchloride of gold that can be safely administered is i-6th of a grain. The tincture of gold known by the name of Mademoiselle Grhnald? s potable gold enjoyed a wonderful repu- tation towards the close of the 18th century as an efficacious restorative and stimulant ; and numerous instances of its all but (10 ///. APHRODISIACS AND miraculous powers were confidently adduced. Dr. Samuel Johnson, indeed, in a note upon a well-known passage in Shakes- peare, • denies the possibility of making gold potable ; " There has long," he observes, " prevailed an opinion that a solution of gold has great medicinal virtues, and that the incorruptibility of gold might be communicated to the body impregnated with it. Some have pretended to make gold potable among other frauds practised upon credulity." So far back, however, as the 17th century theAbb^ Guence shewed that it was feasible, and even described the process minutely ; and it is now known to every chemist that gold is susceptible of entering into immediate com- bination with chlorine by the agency of heat, that it may even be dissolved in water charged with chlorine, and that various methods exist of obtaining chlorate of gold, a combination which is often successfully employed in the treatment of syphilitic cases. Ether, naptha, and essential oils take gold from its solvent, and fun-m liquors which have been called potable gold. Even the Christian Church itself possessed, in its early times, aphrodisiacs peculiarly its own. " On trouve," says Voltaire, f " dans la lettre Ji Maiftre Acacius Lampirius (Liler£e virorum obscurorum) une raillerie assez forte sur la conjuration qu'on employait pour se faire aimer des filles. Le secret con- sistoit a prendre un cheveu be la fille, on le pla^oit d'abord dans son haut-de-chausses ; on faisoit une confession generale et on fesoit dire trois messes, pendant les quelles on mettoit le • " The care on thee depending Hath fed upon the body of my father, Therefore, thou best of gold art worst of gold ; Other less fine in carat is more precious. Preserving life in medicine potable." Henry IV., sec. part, act iv. sc, 1 1. t Lettres sur Franqoij Rabelais. Let. 11. ANTI-APHRODISIACS. 1 1 1 cbeveu autour de son col ; on allumait un cierge b^ni au dernier Evangile en on prononcait cette formule. ' O Vierge 1 je te conjure par la vertu du Dieu tout-puissant, par les neuf chceurs des anges, par la vertu gosdrienne, am^ne moi icelle fille, en chair et en os, afin que/e la sabotite a men plaisir.' " Bourchard, Bishop of Worms, has transmitted to us • an account of certain aphrodisiacal charms practised by women of__ his time, the disgusting obscenity of which is such that we can- not venture upon translating the passage : " Fecisti quod qusedam mulieres facere solent? Tollunt menstruum suum sanguinem et immiscunt cibo vel potui et dant viris suis ad manducandum vel ad bibendum ut plus diligantur ab eis. Si fecisti, quinque annos per legitimas ferias pceniteas. *' Gustasti de semine viri tui ut propter tua diabolica facta plus in amorem exardisceret ? Si fecisti, septem annos per legitimas ferias poenitere debeas. " Fecisti quod quredam mulieres facere solent ? Prosternunt se in faciemet discoopertis natibus, jubent ut supra nudas nates conficirtur panis, ut eo decocto tradunt maritis suis ad come- dendum. Hoc ideo faciunt ut plus exardescant in amorem suum. Si fecisti, duos annos per legitimas ferias pceniteas. " Fecisti quod quiedam mulieres facere solent ? Tollunt piscem vivum et mittunt eum in puerperium suum, et tamdiu ibi tenent, donee mortuus fuerit, et decocto pisce vel assato, maritis suis ad comedendum tradunt. Ideo faciunt ut plus in amorem suum exardescant. Si fecisti, duos annos per legitimas ferias pceniteas." Remedies taken internally are not the only ones which stimu late man to sexual intercourse. External applications materially contribute to that end, and liniments have been composed " De FcGnitenti& Decrelorum, lib. ; 112 ///. APHRODISIACS AND wherewith to anoint the parts of generation. These washes are made of honey, liquid storax, oil and fresh butter, or the fat of the wild goose, together with a small quantity of spurge, pyrethrum, ginger or pepper to insure the remedy's pene- trating : a few grains of ambergris, musk, or cinnamon are to be added by way of perfume. Remedies for the same purpose may also be applied to men's testicles especially ; as according to the opinion of Galen, those [jarts are the second source of heat, which they communicate to the whole of the body ; for, besides the power of engender- ing, they also elaborate a ^irituoas humour or fluid which renders man robust, hardy, and courageous. The best appli- cation of this kind is that composed of cinnamon powder, gilli- flower, ginger and rose water, together with theriac, the crumb of bread, and red wine. In addition to the means already mentioned for restoring vigour to the generative organs, two others may be reckoned which have been successfully resorted to for bracing them in such persons whose reproductive faculties lie dormant rather than extinct : these two methods are known as Jiageiia(io?i and itrtication. * Flagellation was recommended by several of the ancient physicians as an effectual remedy in many disorders, and this upon the physiological axiom of Hippocrates — ubi stimulus, ibi affliixiis. Seneca considers it as able to remove the quartan ague. Jerome Mercurialis speaks of it as employed by many physicians in order to impart embonpoint to thin, meagre per- sons ; and Galen Informs us that slave merchants used it as a means of clearing the complexion of their slaves and plumping " See Millengen's " Curiosities of Medical Experience," art. Flagellat Vol. 11., p. 47et seq. ANTI-A PH ROD I SI A CS. them up. Alaedeus, of Padua, recommends flagellation with green nettles, that is, urtication, to be performed on the limbs of young children for the purpose of hastening the eruption of the small pox, Thomas Campanella* attributes to flagellation the virtue of curing intestinal obstructions, and adduces in proof to his assertion, the case of the Prince of Venosa, one of the best musicians of his time, who could not go to stool, without being previously flogged by a valet kept expressly for that purpose. Even at a later period the same opinion obtained as to the efficacy of flagellation, it being supposed by many physcians to reanimate the torpid circulation of the capillary and cutaneous vessels, to increase muscular energy, to promote absorption, and to favour tlie necessary secretions of our nature. + As an erotic stimulant, more particularly it may be observed that, con- sidering the many intimate and sympathetic relations existing between the nervous branches of the extremity of the spinal marrow, it is impossible to doubt that flagellation exercised upon the buttocks and the adjacent parts, has a powerful effect upon the organs of generation. Meibomius, % the great advocate for the use of this remedy, ' 'Medic, Lib. Ill,, art 12, t See Richter, Opuscula medica Col. I„ p. 273, " Qui novit ex stimulantiitm fonte, cardiaca, aphrodiiiaca, diaphorellca, diuretica aliaque non infimi ordinis medicamenia peti, perspicit plenius fiuam larga veritrihus bene merendi sit, uti prffisertim in torpore nervorum, paralysi, impolenlia ad Ventrem el natura- lium excretionum eluxii. X Author of the work entitled, " Dt JJ.igrorum usu in re venertu," Lug. Bat. . 16 3, with the motto : '* Delicias pariunt Veneri crudelia fiagra, Dum nocet, ilia juvat, dum juvat, ecce nocet. " Lo ! cruel stripes the sweets of love ensure, And painful pleasures pleasing pains procure." 114 ///. APHRODISIACS AND remarks, that stripes inflicted upon the back and loins are of great utility in exciting tlie venereal appetite, because they create warmth in those parts whose office it is to elaborate the semen and to convey it to the generative organs. He, therefore, con- sidered it by no means wonderful that the miserable victims- of debauchery and lasciviousness, as well as those whose powers have been exhausted by age or excess, should have recourse to flagellation as a remedy. He observes that its effect is very likely to be that of renewing warmth in the now frigid parts, and of furnishing heat to the semen, an effect in producing which the pain itself materially contributes by the blood and heat wliich is thereby drawn down to the part until they are communicated to the reproductive organs, the erotic passion being thus raised, even in spite of nature herself, beyond her powers. A similar view is taken by a modem writer, whose opinion is " that the effect of flagellation may be easily referred to the powerful sympathy which exists between the nerves of the lower part of the spinal marrow and other organs. Artificial excitement appears in some degree natural ; it is observed in several animals, especially in the feline race. Even snails plunge into each other a bony, prickly spur, that arises from their throats, and which, like the sting of the wasp, frequently breaks off, and is left in the wound." After the appearance of the Abb^ Boileau's Histoire de la Flagellation, the Jesuits condemned several propositions found either in that work or in others approved by him. The follow- ing is one : " Necesse est cum musculi lumbares virgis aut flagellis diver- berantur, spiritus vitales revelli, adeoque salaces motus ob * Millingen, " Curiosities of Medical Expt .■' Vol. II., p. 52. ANTI-APHRODISIA CS. 115 vicinam partium genitalium et testium excitari, qui venereis ac illecebris cerebrum mentemque fasciiiant ac virtutem castitatis ad extremas augustias rediguiit." From out of almost innumerable instances of the ef^cacy of flagellation as an aphrodisiac, the following are selected, Cornelius Gallvs, the friend of Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, and Catullus, and who, according to Pliny, died the most delightful of deaths by expiring in the embraces of the fondest object of his affections, • was solely indebted for the delicious transports he enjoyed with her to the scourge with which her severe father chastised her for the faults that origluated in too warm a tem- perament, a punishment which, instead of counteracting, fur- thered the wishes of the voluptuous Roman. jean Pic de Mirandole relates + the case of a person known to him who, being a great hbertine, could not consummate the act of love without being flagellated until the blood came, and that, therefore, providing himself for the occasion with a whip steeped in vinegar, he presented it to his itiamorala, begging her not to spare him, for " plus on le fouettait, plus il y trouvait des diilices, la douleur et !a volupte marchant, dans cet homme, . d'un pas egal." Meibomius mentions the case of a citizen of Lubeck who, being accused and convicted of adultery, was sentenced to be banished. A woman of pleasure with whom tliis man had • To this personage may justly be applied the French epitaph upon one who died under similar- circumstances; " je suis mort de I'amour enterpris Entre les jambes d'une dame, Bien heureux d'avoir rendu I'ime, Au mEme lieu oli je I'ai pris." t See his work, contra Atirukgoi, Lib. III., cap. J7. li6 ///. APHRODISIACS AND been for a long time intimate, appeared before the judj^es as a witness on his behalf. This woman swore that the man was never able to consummate the act of love with her unless he had been previously flogged, — an operation which it was also necessary to repeat before each successive indulgence. That this was a means employed by Abelard in his commerce with Heloisa, appears from the following passages in two of his letters to her ; " Verbera quandoque dabat amor non furor, gratia non ira qu:e omnium unguentorum suavitatem transcenderent." * " Stripes which, whenever inflicted by love, not by fury but affection, transcended, in sweetness, every unguent," " Nosti quantis turpldudinibus immoderata mea libido cor- [X)ra nostra addixerat et nulla honestatis vel Dei reverentia in ipsis diebus Dominicie passionis vel quantarumque solemnitatem ut hujus luti volutabro me revocavit, Sed et te nolentem aut dissuadentem quae natura infirmior eras, ut saepius minis ac flagellis ad consensum trahebam.'l'" " Thou knowest to what shameful excesses my unbridled lust had delivered up our bodies, so that no sense of decency, no reverence for God, could, even in the season of our Lord's passion, or during any other holy festival, drag me forth from out that cesspool of filthy mire ; but that even with threats and scourges I often compelled thee who wast, by nature, the weaker vessel, to comply, notwithstanding thy unwillingness and remonstrances." The renowned Tamerlane, the mighty conqueror of Asia, " Petri Alxelardi Abbatis Rugensis et Heloissse Abbatissa; Paracletensis Kpistolse. Epist. I., p, lO, tibib. Epist. 111., p. 8i. AN Tl-APHRODISIA CS. 117 required a like stimulus,* the more so perhaps from the circum- stance of his being a monorchis. f The Abbe Boileau, in his well known and entertaining " His- toire des Flagellants," partly attributes the gross licentiousness of that period to the strange practice then in vogue of doing penance by being scourged in public ; and his brother the celebrated poet and critic, defending the Abb^ against the animadversions of the Jesuits, remarks very forcibly : " Non, le livre des Flagellans N'a jamais condamnc, lisez le bien, mes peres, Ces rigidites salutaires Qui, pour ravir le Ciel, saintement violens, Exercent sur leurs corps, tant de Chretiens austeres : II blame seulement ccS abus odieux D'etaler et d'oflrir aux yeux Ce que leur doit toujnurs cacher la bienveillance, Et combat vivement la fausse piete, Qni sons coitleitr d'eteindre en nmis la volupU Par I'ausiiriti mhne, et par la p4nilence Sail allumer le feu de la lubricil^.^'* Flagellation, indeed, as well as the custom of wearing the liair-shirt, so common with the monks, and even with religious lay catholics, was, by the stimulus it imparted to the skin, and hence to the internal viscera, much more likely to increase the • See Meibomius, p, 43, note a. Edit. Paris, 1792, lamo. t Name given to persons having only one testicle. J CEiivres, Tom I. p. 283. Ed. 1714. lis ///. APHRODISIACS AND energy of the physiological functions, and thus excite the com- mission of the very acts they are intended to suppress. The Abbe Chuppe d'Auteroche, member of the Acad^.-nie des Sciences, and who died In California a few days after the observation of the Transit of Venus in 1760, remarks that the stripes given to persons frequenting the vapour baths in Russia impart activity to the fluids and elasticity to the organs and gives additional stimulus to the venereal appetite.* M, Serrurier records the following curious case. " One of my schoolfellows, who found an indescribable pleasure in being flogged, purposely and wilfully neglected his duty in order to draw upon himself the correction, which never failed to pro- duce an emission of semen. As may easily be imagined he soon began the practice of masturbation, in which he indulged to so frightful an extent that rapid consumption ensued, and he died, a most horrible and disgusting object, affording a melan- choly example of that fatal vice, f The case of Jean Jacques Rousseau is well known. When a child he was by no means displeased with the corrections administered to him by a lady considerably his elder, he even frequently sought for a whipping at her hands, especially after he perceived that the flagellation developed in him the mani- fest token of virility. But he must be allowed to give his own account of it. " Assez long temps," says he, " Madame Lam- bercier s'entint ti la menace, et cette menace d'un chdtiment tout nouveau pour moi me semblait tres effrayante, mais apres I'ex&ution, je la trouvai moins terrible k I'^preuve que I'attente "Travels in Siberia in 1661, Tom I., p. 3iy. t Dictiunnaire des Sciences Medicales. Art. Polluti b ANTl-APHRODISIA CS. 119 ne I'avait ^t^, et ce qu'il y a de plus bizarre est que ce chSti- ment m' affectionna davantage d'elle qui me I'avoit impost, 11 fallait mfime toute la verite de cette affection et toute ma douceur naturelle pour m'emp^cher de chercher le retour du meme traitement en le militant, car j'avais trouv6 dans la douleur, dans la honte m^me, un melange de sensuality qui m'avait laisse plus de d^sir que de crainte de I'eprouver dere- chef, par la meme main. 11 est vrai que comme i! se mSlait, sans doute, a cela quelque instinct precoce du sexe, le m^me chdti- ment regu de son frere, ne m'eut point du tout, parut plaisant."* As flagellation is practised by striking the skin with a rod formed of twigs, until the heat and redness become more intense, so if the twigs be replaced by fresh nettles, the opera- tion will become, — wtication. The employment of urtication is of great antiquity, for Celsus as well as Aretjeus mentions the use of it, it being in those times, a popular remedy. That the Romans had frequent recourse to it in order to arouse the sexual appetite, is proved by the following passage from Petronius Arbiter, which for obvious reasons, we shall content ourselves with giving in the original only. " Oenothea semiebria ad me respiciens ; — Per- ficienda sunt, inquit, mysteria ut recipas nemos. " Simulque profert scorteum fascinum quod, ut olio et minuto pipere, aque urtica trito circumdedit semine, paulatim coepit in- serere ano meo. Hoc crudelissima anus spargit subinde femina mea Nasturcii f succum cum abrotono miscet, perfusis que inguinibus meir, viridis urtictC fascem comprehendit omnes que infra umblHcum ccepit lenta manu ctedere. J • Ginfessions, Tom. 1 , t De Nasturcio mira refert Dioscoridas, I., 2, c. 185. t Satyricon, Caput xxxviii. 1 20 ///. APHRODISIACS AND Menghus Faventiiius assures us that nettles have *' une pro- I priete merveiUeuse pour allonger, tendre, grossir et iriger le membre viril, qui, par une parsimonie de la nature, feroit craindre la sterilitii. • Urtication appears to have been well known in France during the time of Rabelais, who alluding to this mode of pro- i curing the vigour necessary for the amorous conflict, says, " se frotter le cul au panicaut (a species of thistle) vrai moyen ; d'avoir au cul passion." Une femme en mdancholie Pour faute d' occupation, Frottez moi le cul d'ortie Elle aura au cul passion. f The irritation caused by nettles produces efiects analogous to 1 those which Eire observed in persons afflicted with the itch, the ' ring-worm and leprosy. The lubricity of those unfortunates i sometimes uncontrolable; they suffer violent priapisms, which are followed by ejaculation, whenever a severe itching forces them to scratch themselves with a kind of furor or madness. " In a medical point of view," observes Dr. Milligen, *' urti- cation, or stinging with nettles, is a practice not sufficiently ] appreciated. In many instances, especially in cases of paralysis it is more efificacous than blistering or stimulating frictions. Its | effects, though perhaps less permanent, are general and diffused ' over the limb. This process has been found effectual in restor- ing ^frt/ /c Me /<7&.'tfrfAVr(!';«//?'£j, and a case of obstinate leth- argy was cured by Corvisart by a repeated urtication of the whole body. During the action of the stimulus, the patient, * Pract. part. ii. cap. de passioni membre-genital. fDucatianaii., b. 505. b ANTI-APHRODISIACS. who was a young man, would open his eyes and laugh, but then sink again into a profound sleep. In three weeks, however, his perfect cure was effected. * In 1783, Dr. James Graham, an humble imitator of the cele- brated Cagliostro, commenced giving his sanatary lectures, which he illustrated by the dazzling presence of his Goddess of Health, a character which, for a short time, was sustained by Emma Harte, afterwards the celebrated Lady Hamilton, wife of Sir William Hamilton, English Ambassador at the Court of Naples, and the chire amie of the immortal Nelson. After describing various aphrodisiacal remedies, the lecturer thus proceeds : " But, gentlemen, if all the above means and methods, which I have thus faithfully, ingenuously, and with the frankest and most unreserved liberality, recommended, fail, suffer me, with great cordiality, and assurance of success, to recommend my celestial, or medico, magnetico, musico, elec- trical bed, which I have, with so much study and at so vast an expense, constructed, not alone to insure the removal of barren- ness, when conception is at all in the nature of things possible, but likewise to improve, exalt, and invigorate the bodily, and through them, the mental faculties of the human species. This bed, whose seemingly magical influences are now celebrated from pole to pole and from the rising to the setting sun I is indeed an unique in science I and unquestionably the first and the only one that ever was mentioned, erected, or even, per- haps, thought of, in the world ; and I will now conclude the lecture with giving you a slight descriptive sketch of the struc- ture of the bed, and the nature of those influences with which it glows — which it breathes forth, and with which it animates, •Curiosities of Medical Experience, vol. II., p. sj. 122 ///. APHRODISIACS AND regenerates, and trans|3orts those happy, happy persons who have ' the honour and the paradisiacal blessedness of reposing on it. *' The Grand Celestial State Bed ! then, gentlemen, which is twelve feet long by nine wide, is supported by forty pillars of brilliant glass, of great strength and of the most exquisite workmanship, in regard to shape, cutting, and engravings ; sweetly delicate and richly variegated colours, and the most brilliant polish 1 They are, moreover, invisibly incrusted with a certain transparent varnish in order to render the insulation still more complete ; and that otherwise, properly assisted, we may have, in even the most unfavourable weather, abundance of the electrical fire. " The subhme, the magnificent, and, I may say, the super- celestial dome of the bed, which contains the odoriferous, balmy, and ethereal spices, odours, and essences, and which is the grand magazine or reservoir of those vivifying and invigorating influences which are exhaled and dispersed by the breathing of the music, and by the attenuating, repelling, and accelerating force of the electrical fire, — is very curiously inlaid or wholly covered on the under side with brilliant plates of looking-glass, so disposed as to reflect the various attractive charms of the happy recumbent couple, in the most flattering, most agreeable and most enchanting style. " On the top or summit of the dome, are placed, in the most loving attitudes, two exquisite figures, representing the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, with a fine figure of Hymen behind, and over them, with his torch flaming with electrical fire in one hand and, with the other, supporting a celestial crown, sparkling, likewise, with the effulgent fire over a pair of real living turtle- doves, who, on a little bed of roses, coo and bill under the super- animating impulses of the genial fire ! The other elegant groups ANTI-APHRODISIACS. 123 of figures which sport on the top of the dome— the Cupids, the Loves, and the Graces I — besides festoons of the freshest and most beautiful flowers, have each of them musical instruments in their hands, which by the exquisite and most expensive mechanism, are made to breathe forth sounds corresponding with the appearance of the several instruments, — flutes, guitars, violins, clarionets, trumpets, horns, oboes, kettle-drums, &c. On the posts or pillars, too, which support the grand dome are groups of figures, musical instruments, organ- pipes, &c., which, in sweet concert with the other instruments, at the com- mencement of the tender dalliance of the happy pair, breathe forth celestial sounds ! lulling them in visions of eiysian joys ! opening new sources of pleasure, and " untwisting all the chains which tie the hidden soul of harmony 1" At the head of the bed, in the full centre front, appears, sparkling with electrical fire, through a glory of burnished and effulgent gold, the great, first, ever-operatin;^ commandment. Be fruitful, multiply, and REPLENISH THE EARTH 1 undcr this is a most elegant and sweet- toned organ, in the front of which is a fine landscape of moving figures on the earth, birds flying, swans, &c., gliding on the waters, a fine procession, too, Is seen, village nymphs strewing flowers before priests, brides, bridegrooms, and their attendants, who, all entering into the temple of Hymen, disappear from the delightful eye. The painting and embellishment of this front are most masterly, and reflect the highest honour on the artists by whom they were executed ; and the whole view is terminated with fountains, waterfalls, shepherds, shepherdesses, and other peasants, as pastoral sports and rural employment, and by a little church, the dial of which points out truly and distinctly the hour. 124 ///. APHRODISIACS AND " In the celestial bed no feather bed is employed ; sometimes mattresses filled with sweet new wheat or cut straw, with the grain in the ears, and mingled with balm, rose leaves, lavender flowers, and oriental spices, and, at other times, springy hair mattresses are used. Neither will you find upon the celestial bed linen sheets ; our sheets are of the richest and softest silk or satin ; of various colours suited to the complexion of the lady who is to repose on them. Pale green, for example, rose colour, sky blue, black, white, purple, azure, mazarin blue, &c., and they are sweetly perfumed in the oriental manner, with otto and odour of roses, jessamine, tuberose, rich gums, fragrant balsams, oriental spices, &c. ; in short, everything is done to assist thq ethereal, magnetic, musical and electric influences, and to make the lady look as lovely as possible in the eyes of her husband and he, in hers. But to return, in order that I might have for the important purposes, the strongest and most springy hair, I procured, at a vast expense, the tails of English staUions, which when twisted, baked, and then untwisted and proi>erly prepared, is elastic to the highest degree. " But the chief elastic priuciple of my celestial bed is produced by artificial loadstones. About fifteen hundred pounds' weight of artificial and compound magnets are so disposed and arranged as to be continually pouring forth in an ever-flowing circle inconceivable and irrestibly powerful tides of the magnetic effluxion, which is well known to have a very strong affinity with the electric fire. " Such is a slight and indequate sketch of the grand celestial bed, which, being thus completely insulated, — highly saturated with the most genial floods or electrical fire 1 — fully impregnated moreover, with the balmy vivifying effluvia of restorative AN TI-APHRODISIA CS. "25 balsamic medicines and of soft, fragrant, oriental gums, balsams and quintescence, and pervaded at the same times with full springing tides of the invigorating influences of music and magnets both real and artificial, gives such elastic vigour to the nerves, on the one hand, of the male, and on the other, surh retentive firmness to the female ; and, moreover, all the faculties of the soul being so fully expanded, and so highly illuminated, that It is impjsiible, in the nature of things, but that strong, beautiful, brilliant, nay, double-distilled children, if I may use the expression, must infallibly be begotten." A digression may, perhaps, be here pardonable, in order to give some notice of the latter and last days of the beautiful, highly accomplished and fascinating woman mentioned above. She had been presented to Nelson by her husband, who had previously told her that he was about to introduce her to a little thread-paper of a man, who could not boast of being very hand- some, but who would become, somo day, one of the greatest men that England ever produced. After the battle of the Nile he again visited Naples, and was now little belter than a perfect wreck. At Calvi, in 1794, he had lost an eye. At Tenerifie his right arm was shattered and amputated close to the shoulder. At the battle of the Nile he was severely wounded in the head. Incessant anxiety and watchfulness for his country's honour and welfare had blanched his brow, and shattered the " little thread-paper of a man " at the outset, till, on his return in triumph to his mistress, he seemed to be on the verge of an early grave. Yet she proved herself a true woman, if an erring one, in her reception of the man she loved, and unhesitatingly and unequi- vocally forsook her all, to attend upon and worship him. J36 in. APHRODISIACS AND Not far from Merton turnpike stood the house of Nelson and his mistress. It was left with all its liabilities to Lady Hamilton, but she was obliged t j take a hasty departure, and, harassed by creditors, in sickness of heart and without funds, the unhappy woman escaped to Calais. Now for the sad, sad finale. From the portal of a house, as cheerless and dreary as can be imagined, in the month of Jan- uary, with a black silk petticoat stretched on a white curtain thrown over her coffin for a pall, and an half-pay Irish dragoon to act as chaplain over the grave, which was in a timber-yard, were the remains of Nelson's much-adored friend removed to their final resting place, under the escort of a sergent de ville. She died without the common necessaries of life, and was buried at the expense of the town, notwithstanding Nelson's last words, " Blackwood^ take care of my poor Lady Hamilton ! " " Whatever the errors of Lady Hamilton may have been," says Doran, " let us not forget that without her aid, as Nelson said, the battle of the Nile would never have been fought, and that in spite of her sacrifices and services, England left her to starve, because the government was too virtuous to acknowledge the benefits rendered to her country by a lady with too looce a The remarks of honest old Burton • upon Aphrodisiacs, though quaint, are so judicious and pertinent, tliat we cannot , better conclude this part of our essay than by quoting them : — ' "The last battering engines," says he,"are philters, amulets, charms, images, and such unlawful meanes : if they cannot prevail of themselves by the help of bawds, panders, and their • Anatomy of Melancholy, Pari 3, 1 mb. 3, subj. 5. ANTI-A PHRODISIA CS. 127 adherents, they will fly for succour to the devil himself. 1 know there be those that denye the devil can do any such thing, and that there is no other fascination than that which comes by the eyes. It was given out, of old, that a Thessalian wench had bewitched King Philip to dote on her, and by philters enforced his love, but wlien Olympia, his queen, saw the maid of an ex- cellent beauty well brought up and qualified : these, quoth she, were the philters which enveagled King Philip, these the true charms as Henry to Rosamond. * " One accent from thy lips the blood more warmes Than all their philters, exorcismes, and charms," With that alone Lucretia brags, in Aretine, she could do more than all philosophers, astrologers, alychmists, necroman- cers, witches, and the rest of the crew. As for herbs and philters 1 could never skill of them. T/te sole philter I ever used was kissing and embracing, by which alone I made nun rave like beasls, stupefied and compelled them to worship me like an idol.\ ■ Pomodidascalus seu Colloquium Muliebre Petri Aretini ingtniossimi ei/eri iiKomparaiitis vi'riu/um et vilioTum demorulralorii : De Astu nefario, horren- disque dolis, quibus impudic» mulieres juvenluti incautae insidiantur. — Fran^o- furli. Anno 1623. t Verum omni tsliscienca(magica) (says Lucretia) nunquampotuimovere cor hominis sola vero salivil mea (id est ampleux et basils) inungcns tarn furiosi furere tam bestialiter obsfupefieri plurimos coegi ut instar idoil me Amoresque meos adorarint.— p. 47-8, ///. APHRODISIACS AND ANTI-APHRODISIACS. The means best calculated to produce effects contrary to those n just treated of are of several kinds, but such as are derived from 1 hygiene are entitled to be considered as the most powerful. Previou^y, however, to describing the medicinal substances that may be efficaciously employed in moderating, or rather checking, too violent a propensity to venery, some notice must be taken of the diet adapted to insure such a result. The use of milk, vegetables, such as lettuce, water- purslain, cucumbers, &c., and especially of fruit in which the acid prin- ciple predominates, slackens the movement of the heart and of the sanguineous system; it diminishes the animal heat, the chief source of which is in the activity of the circulation ; it produces a feeling of tranquillity and of coolness ; the respiration being more slow, occasions the absorption of a less quantity of oxygen, , add to which, as a less quantity of reparative materials is con- tained in this description of aliments, there result a less active i nutrition, the loss of enbonpoint and the complete prostration of every principle of Irritability ; in short, it is of all diets the | one least capable of furnishing fuel to the passions. For J common drink mere water, and, if tlie impulse of passion | should increase, a small quantity of nitre, vinegar, or vitroHc [ acid, may, occasionally be added to the water to make it more j cooling. Other means conducive to the same end are a laborious life, much bodily exercise, little sleep, and a spare diet, so that the fluids may be more easily conducted to other parts, and k ANTI'APHRODISIA CS. 129 Wiat there may not be produced a jjreater quantity than is requisite for the support of the body. Equally valuable " When there's a young and sweating devil That commonly rebels," will be found what Shakespeare recommends — " A sequester from liberty, fasting and prayer, Much castigation, exercise devout."* Should the desire of committing excesses rise to any height, immediate recourse must be had to some serious and mind- absorbing occupation, less nutritious food and drink should be taken, all dishes peculiarly stimulating to the palate avoided, as well as the use of wine and other spirituous liquors. A cool regimen in every res[ject was particularly insisted upon by tlie ancients : hence Plato and Aristotle recommended the custom of going barefoot as a means of checking the stimulus to carnal desire, a suggestion which appears to have been acted upon by some of the monkish orders. The cold bath was con- sidered equally efficacious, while some, among whom may be reckoned Pliny and Galen, advised thiii sheets of lead to be worn on the calves of the legs and near the kidneys. The first and most important of the hygienic means consists in shunning every species of exciteme.it and in having little or no communication with the sex, and the earlier such restraint is imposed, the better. ' He that is chaste and continent, not to impair his strength, or terrified by contagion, will hardly be heroically virtuous. Adjourn not that virtue until those years when Cato could lend out his wife, and impotent satyrs write satires against lust — but be chaste in thy flaming days, when Alexander dared not trust his eyes upon the fair sisters of • UtheUo, Act iii, Sc. lO. 130 ///. APHRODISIACS AND Darius, and when so many men think that there is no other way than that of Origen." * f The next means is that of carefully abstaining from the per- sual of all pubHcations calculated to inflame the passions, by which publications are meant, not obscene books only. With respect to these, indeed, a great error obtains, for the persons most anxious to peruse them are, for the most part, old, worn- out debauchees, men whose generative powers are, comparatively, feeble, if not altogether destroyed, and who. unfortunately for themselves, require this unnatural and detestable kind of stim- ulus, while, on the contrary, young men and those in middle life, who had not drawn too largely upon their constitution, and for whom the allurements of nature are themselves a sufficient provocative, regard such publications with horror and disgust, It is not, therefore, we repeat, works of this description which we allude to, but those the perusal of which is more dangerous during the period of the passions — novels, more especially such as, under the pretext of describing the working of the human heart, draw the most seducing and inflammatory pictures of illicit love, and throw the veil of sentimental philosophy over the orgies of debauchery and licentiousness. Nothing is more perilous to youth, especially of the female sex, than this descrip- tion of books. Their style is chaste, not one word is found •Sir Thos. Browne's Works, Vol. III., p. 89, Bohn's Edit. t Origen, one of the Fathersof the Church, bom in a.d. 185, is a melancholy proof how far the reason may be perverted by erroneous views in religious matters ; for according to Fulgos, " ut corpus at) omni venerea labe mundum servaret, omnique suspicione careret, seeds genitalibus membris, eunuchum se fecit." He, however, lived long enough to condemn his error. See his I Slh sermon upon St. Matthew, cap, 19, v. 12 ; his work against Celsus, lib. 7; and his 7th Treatise upon the l8th and 19th Chapters of St. Matthew, ANTI-APHRODISIACS. 131 that can offend the ear, while the mind of the unsuspecting reader is often tainted and corrupted by the most impure ideas and descriptions clothed in the most elegant phraseology. How admirably does Voltaire stigmatise this attention to a mere superficial (if the epitaph be allowed) purity I " Plus," says he " les moeurs sont depraves, plus les expressions deviennent mesurees : on croit de gagner en langage ce qu'on a perdu en vertu. La pudeur s'est enfuite des cceurs et s'est refugiee sur les levres." There are two kinds of study particularly adapted to preserve the mind and the affections from the assaults of vice and libidi- nousness. The first of these is the AIalhemaHcs,vi\\ose. efficacy in this respect has been proved by frequent experience. The Venetian lady mentioned by Rousseau in his " Confessions " was not ignorant of this their power, when, seeing the singular effect which her charms had produced upon the, as yet, youthful philosopher, said to him, " Gianetlo, lascia le donne e stiidia la maiimatkay " James, give up the ladies, and apply yourself to mathematics." It will, indeed, be found that, in all ages, mathematicians have been but little disposed or addicted to love, and the most celebrated among them. Sir Isaac Newton, is reputed to have lived without ever having had sexual intercourse. The intense mental application required by philosophical abstrac- tion forcibly determines the nervous fluid towards the intellec- tual organs, and hinders it from being directed towards those of reproduction. After the study of the Mathematics comes that of Natural History, which will be found to be almost equally beneficial, requiring as it does, the unremitting attention of the student. his perambulation of the open country, and the personal obser- vation of all animated objects. 132 ///. APHRODISIACS AND This peculiar influence of the above-mentioned studies ought particularly to engage the attention of persons who superintend the education of youth ; there being no doubt that the efferves- cence of youthful passions may, to a great extent, be allayed by directing the juvenile mind to either of those studies, according as the constitution exhibits greater or less ardour and precocity. Sometimes, however, there are found idiosyncrasies which bid defiance to remedies of this description, but, nevertheless, yield to the force of medicine : of such, the following is an instance : " A man, by profession a musician, of an athletic figure and sanguine complexion, with red hair, and a very warm tempera- ment, was so tormented with erotic desires that the venereal act, repeated several times in the course of a few hours, failed to satisfy him. Disgusted with himself, and fearing, as a religious man, the punishment with which concupiscence is threatened in the Gospel, he applied to. a medical practitioner, who prescribed bleeding and the use of sedatives and refrigerants, together with a light diet. Having found no relief from this course of treatment, he was then recommended to have recourse to wed- lock, and, in consequence, married a robust and healthy young woman, the daughter of a farmer. At first, the change appeared to benefit him, but, in a short time, he tired his wife out bv his excessive lubricity, and relapsed into his former satyriasis. His medical friend now recommended frequent fasting, together with prayer, but these also failing of effect, the unhappy man proposed to submit Co castration, an operation which was judged to be highly improper, considering the great risks the patient must necessarily incur. The latter, however, still persisted that his wish should be complied with, when, fortunately, a case having occurred in Paris, in which a person afflicted with neph- ANTI-APHRODISIACS,. 133 ritic pains occasioned by the presence of a calculus, was cured by a preparation of nitre, at the expense, however, of being for ever incapacitated tor the pleasures of love, the hint was taken, and doses of nitre dissolved in aqua nympluc were given, night and morning, during the space of eight days, and with such suc- cess that, at the end of that time, he could scarcely satisfy the moderate claims of his wife." * Some physicians place great confidence in the medicines called refrigerants. The most favourite of these are infusions from the leaves or flowers of the white water-lily {nymphea alba), sorrel, lettu:e, perhaps, also ir<^m. mallows, violets, and endive (cichoriiim), oily seeds, and water^ distilled from lettuce, water- lily, cucumbers, purslain, and endives. In equal esteem are the syrups of orgeat, lemons, and vinegar, to which may be added cherry-laurel water, when given in projDer and gradually-increas- ing doses. Hemlock, camphor, and agntis-castiis, have likewise been much recommended as moderators of the sexual appetite. According to Piiny, f the nymphea alba was considered sn powerful that these who Cake it for twelve days successively will then find themselves incapable of propagating their species, and if it be used for forty days, the amorous propensity will be entirely extinguished. With respect to hemlock, it is too dangerous a medicine to repose confidence in. The ancients had a h^h opinion of camphor, a reputation which this drug preserved until, comparatively, a late period, for Scaliger informs that, in the 1 7th century, monks were com- pelled to smell and masticate it for the purpose of extinguishing • Baldas5ar Tirnteus Cas. med. Lib. XIX., Salacitas nitro curata. t Historic Mundi, Lib. XXV!., c. 7. ///. APHRODISIACS AND conaipiscence ; and it was a favourite maxim of the medical school of Salernum * that — " Camphora per nares castrat odore mares." Camphor if smell'd A man will geld. This fatal property, however, has been denied by modern medical authorities, and apparently with reason, if the fact be true that such workmen as are employed in extracting this use« ful vegetable product, and who may be said to live constantly in a highly comphorated atmosphere, do not find themselves in the least degree incapacitated for gratifying the calls of Vamotir physique. There is no doubt, on the other hand, that camphor has been successfully employed in cases of nymphomania, and that several medical writers have asserted its efificacy in neutralising the properties of cantharides, adducing instances which would appear to prove its sedative power : the following one is related by Groenvelt : — + A young man who had taken a large dose of cantharides in some wine, felt at first, a sort of violent itching, accompanied by great irritation in the bladder, and soon after he suffered ^ • The medical school of Salerno {latine Salerum) was founded by Robert Guiscardat the end of the i ith century ; and about the year iioo a collection of medical aphorisms, was composed in Latin verse by a certain John of Milan, and published under the title of Mtdkina SaieTlintt. Of this poem, which originally consisted 0(1239 verses, only 373, or about a third, are extant. These were published at Paris in 1625 by R^n6 Moreau; In 1653 it was travestied by L. Martin ; paraphrased by Bruzen de la MartJnibre in 1743, , and by Dr. Levacherde la Feuverie in 1782, t De tuto caniharidum in medicini usu interne. k ANTI-APHRODISIACS. 135 greatly from extreme heat, together with an intolerable strangury. Bleeding, emulsions, injections, and opium prepara- tions afforded not the slightest relief. Groenvelt prescribed two scruples of camphor in two boluses. The first dose partly mitigated the pains, and the second one removed them entirely. The remedies which were first administered had, no doubt, weakened the inflammation, and the strangury being no longer kept up by the spasmodic state of the urinary apparatus, cam- phor sufficed to effect a cure. Burton asserts the value of camphor as an anti-aphrodisiac, and says that when fastened to the parts of generation, or carried in the breeches, it renders the virile member flaccid. Agnus castus, so called from the down on its surface resem- bling that upon the skin of a lamb, and from its supposed anti- aphrodisiacal qualities, was in great repute among the Athenians, whose women, during the celebration of the Thesmophoria or feasts and sacrifices in honour of Ceres or Thesmophoria, the legislatress, abstained for some days from all the pleasures of love, separating themselves entirely for that time from the men. It was also usual with them during the solemnities to strew their beds with agnus castus, fleabane, and oth?r herbs as were sup- posed to have the power of expelling amorous inclinations. Arnaud de Villeneuve* exaggerates, almost to a ridiculous degree, the virtue of the agnus castus, asserting as he does, that the surest way to preserve chastity, is to carry about the person, a knife with a handle made of its wood. It was also, and per- • Amaud de Villeneuve was ont; of the luminaries of the 13th century, being distinguished for his profound knowledge of medicine, chemistry, astrology, and theology. He discovered the sulphuric, muriatic and nitric acids, and was the firsi to compose alcohol and the essence of terebinth or turpentine. 136 ///. APHRODISIACS AND haps is still, much used by the monks, who made an emulsion of its seeds steeped in Nenuphar water, and of which they daily drank a portion, wearinj^ at the same time round their loins a girdle made of its branches. Lettuce has also the reputation of being anti-aphrodisiacal. Lobel instances the case of an English nobleman who had long been desirous of having an heir to his estates, but all in vain. Being, however, at length advised to discontinue eating lettuces, of which he was parti- cularly fond, his wishes were gratified by his being blessed with a numerous offspring. The desire for coition was also supposed to be diminished by drinking a decoction of the pounded leaves of the willow. Ver- vain, dried coriander, and also mustard, drunk in a fluid state, are also said to prevent the erertion of the penis. Alexander Benedictus declares that a topaz having been previously rubbed against the right testicle of a wolf, then steeped in oil or in rose water and worn as a ring, induces a disgust for venereal pleas- ures, as does also. If we may credit the same sapient physiologist, a powder made of dried frog. The two following prescriptions are also said to be of great efficacy ■,— " Da verbena in potu, et non erigitur virga sex diebus. Utere mentha siccd cum aceto : genitalia illinita succo hyoscyami aut cicutx coitfis appetitum sedant. It has even been asserted that coffee possesses the same pro- perty. In the year 1695 it was maintained, in a thesis at the Ecole de Medicine at Paris, that the daily use of coffee deprived both man and woman of the generative power. M. Hecquet ■ relates the following anecdote as a proof of such effect : — e des dispenses du cargme, K ANTI-APHRODISIA CS. 137 A Queen of Persia seeing some grooms using all their efforts to throw a horse upon the ground, enquired the reason of the trouble they were thus taking. Her attendants gave her to understand as delicately as they could, that it was for the pur- pose of castrating him. " How unnecessary is so much trouble," said her majesty, " they have only to give him coffee, and their object will be fully and easily attained." * Most probably the queen spoke from her own experience of its anti-aphrodisiacal effects upon her royal consort. There are some diseases which are considered as anti-aphro- disiacal, on account of the decided aversion which the patient who is afflicted with them feels for the pleasures of the sexual union. Thus a species of epidemic leprosy is common among the Cossacks of the Jaik, which is attended by pains in the joints and a disgust for copulation, a disgust the more extraordinary, not only because exanthematous diseases, in general excite a desire for the above act, but also inasmuch as this malady, in particular usually attacks persons in the prime of their youth. Another disease analogous to the one just mentioned, the Plica- Pol onica, rages, during the autumnal season, in Poland, Lithuania, and Tartary. It is said to have been introduced into the first of these countries by the Tartars, who had it originally from India. One of the most singular phenomena attending this disorder, and which evidently proves the close sympathy existing between the head and the organs of generation, is that when the parient Is bald, the Plica not unfrequently fastens upon the sexual parts, and acquires such a length as to descend below the calves of ■ ■' Any man," said Abernethy, ihe celebrated and eeentric surgeon, " t)iat drinks cofiee and soda water, and smokes cigars, may lie with my wife." (38 ///. APHRODISIACS AND the legs. The mode of treatment, that of mercury and sudori- fics, proves the mucous character of the disorder, and, conse- | quently, accounts for its well known tendency to strike the whole I anima! economy with that prostration of strength which pro- duces a total indifference to the sex. Continual exercise on horseback was considered by Hippo- crates • as anti-aphrodisiacal and Van Sweiten commenting upon i that opinion, justly observes that the continual joltings caused by so violent an exercise, added to the compression produced upon the parts of generation by the weight of the body, was by no means unlikely to produce a local relaxation of those organs . to such an extent as to prevent erection altogether. If whatever opposes an obstacle to the gratification of the sex- ual appetite may be considered as having a place among the ] anti-aphrodisIacs, certain mechanical processes may be ranked ' as such. Of these, jibiilation, from the Latin viord _fibjila (a buckle or ring) was the very reverse of circumcision, since the operation consisted in drawing the prepuce over the glans, and , preventing its return, by the insertion of the ring, f The Fibula (buckle) is so called, because it serves to fix 1 together and to re-unite parts which are separated. It was, formerly a surgical instrument which, besides the use now par- ticularly in question, served also to keep closed the lips of any extensive wounds. It is mentioned as being so applied by J Oribuse, % and by Scrlbonius Largus.§ Employed, therefore f as it was for various uses, the fibula appears to have differentl shapes, now but little known to us. Rhodlus^ has treated ofl all those mentioned in the writings of antiquity. • De Aer : Aqui et Locis. Liber, caput x. t Comment, in Boerh, Aphor. sec. 1063, Vol. HI. X De Maciinis, C. IV. §No. 206. ^ £xerdlaiio de acta, Cap, 4, tl seq. b ANTI-APHRODISIACS. >39 Meinsius thinks that the custom of infibulating may be traced back to the time of the siege of Troy, for the singer Demodocus, who was left with Clytemnestra by Agamemnon, * appears to that critic, to have been a eunuch, or, at least, to have been infibulated.f Among the ancients, as well as among many modem nations, the laws of chastity and the restraints of honour appeared scarcely sufficient to hinder the sexes from uniting, in spite of all the obstacles opposed by a vigilant watch and strict seclu- sion. J Indeed, what Roman virgin could entertain very strict ideas of modesty while she saw the goddess of love honoured in the temple, or the amours of Venus and Mars celebrated, while the poor cuckolded Vulcan, after seizing the amorous couple in his net, was only thereby exposed to the ridicule of the Olympic Divinities. There can be little doubt but that excess of this description bastardized and corrupted the ancient Greeks and Romans, and that recourse was necessarily had to "Cti^ fibula when the deities themselves set the example. Of what use, indeed, could be the moral lessons of a I'lato or a Socrates, even when enforced by infibulation, if vice was thus sanctioned by divine example ? The only aim of such a state of things was to vanquish obstacles. The art of eluding nature was studied, marriage was despised, notwithstanding the edicts of Augustus against bachelors ; the depopulated republic wallowed in the most abandoned lust, and, as a natural conse- quence, the individual members of it became corrupted and enervated from their very infancy. The infibulation of boys, sometimes on account of their voice, ■ Odyssey VIJI. line 477. + Inlrod. to Hesiod, cap. VI. p. 14. Edit. Plautin, 1603, in voce aoiSat. X Annals of Gallantry, I40 ///. APHRODISIACS AND and not unfrequently, to prevent masturbation, was performed by having the prepuce drawn over the glans ; it was then pierced, and a thick thread was passed through it, remaining there until the cicatrizing of the hole ; when that took place, a rather large ring was then substituted, which was not removed but with the permission of the party ordering the operation. • The Romans infibulated their singers in order to preserve their voice : " Si gaudet cantu ; nullius fibula durat Vocem vendentis pr^etoribus." f " But should the dame in music take delight, The public singer is disabled quite ; In vain the prEetor guards him all he can, She slips the buckle (fibula) and enjoys her man." They even subjected to the same operation most of their i actors : " Solvltur his magno comcedi fibula. Sunt, qua; Chrysogonum cantare vetent.";J; '* Take from Chrysogonus the power to sing, Loose, at vast prices, the comedian's ring." " Die mihi, simpliciter, comoedis et citharcedis, Fibula, quod prsestat ? . . . carius ut futuunt. ^ "Tell me, clasp! frankly, of what advantage are you to actresses and lute-players? To enhance their favours." " Menophili, penem tarn grandis fibula vestit Ut sit comoedis omnibus, una satis ' Celsus has described the operation, in detail. Medicina, lib. VII, i t Juvenal, Sat. VI. v. 379-80. J Ibid., V. 73-74. \ Martialis, lib. XIV. Ep. 215. 2S. ANTI-APHRODISIACS. 141 Hunc ego credideram (nam s^epe lavamur in unum) SoUicitum voci parcere, Flacce, suae ; Dum ludit media populo spectante palaestra, Delapsa est misero, fibula ; verpus erat,"* " Una si gran fibula copre il membro di Menofila, che sola bastercbbe a tutti i commenianti. lo O Flacco, avevo creduto (imperocche si siamo sovente lavati insifime) che esso sollectto avesse cura delle sua voce ; lotta in mezzo la palestra a vista del popolo, la fibula casco alio sventvrato ; era un' inciso." Nor were dancers and gladiators exempted from the same operation, especially the latter, in order that they might preserve all the vigour required in their horrible and degrading occu- pation. The best description of ^^fibitla is that given by Holiday : " The fibula," says he, " does not strictly signifie a button, but also a buckle or clasp, or such like stay. In this place, the poet expresses by it the instrument of servllltie applied to those that were employed to sing upon the stage ; the Pr^tor who set forth playes for the delight of the people, buying youths for that purpose, and that they might not, by lust, spoil their voice, their overseers closed their shame with a case of metal having a sharp spike of the same metal passing by the side of it, and sometimes used one of another form ; or by a nearer crueltie, they thrust a brazen or silver wire thought that part which the Jew did lose in circumcision. " The form of the first, and also another fashion, the curious reader may here see (being without any immodestie) as they are represented by Pignerius, de servis, p. 82. But whatsoever the fashion or invention was, the trust was but fond that was. 'Martialis, lib.VII. Ep. Si, 142 ///. APHRODISIACS AND committed to them, seeing that the art of lust and gold could make them as vain as the Italian engines of jealousy in this day." Thus, ' O Lentulus,' says the poet, speaking figuratively to some noble-man, ' it is that thou art married ; but it is some musician's or fencer's bastard that is born under thy lordly canopie.' • Winkleman furnishes us with a description of an infibulated musician,f it being a small bronze statue representing a naked deformed individual, as thin as a skeleton, and carrying a ring in his eiiormi nientiild. Martial, who laughs at everything, speaks of these singers sometimes breaking their ring, and says that it becomes necessary to send them to the fibula- makers in order to have the damage repaired : J " Et cujus refibulavit turgidum, faber, penem, II di cui turgido membro abbia il fabro fibbiato." The practice of infibulation was very common in India, from religious motives. As a proof of their sanctity, many of the Santons, or Mohammedan saints, as well as other devout per- sons, bonzes, fakirs, and the like, devoted themselves to per- petual virginity. Whether it was with the intention of placing themselves beyond the possibility of breaking their vow, or of giving evidence of their constancy, certain it is that they loaded their prepuce with an enormous fibula, or ring ; and, in their warm climate, where nudity does not shock ideas of pro- priety or decency, devout women not unfrequently repaired to these soi-disani saints, to admire and venerate such efforts of • Holiday's Juvenal, Sat. VI., illustr. 1 1, note " Unbutton a Comediitn." For a copy see plate VIJ., fig. i. and a. tMonumenti Aniichi inediti. Rome, 1767, fol.. . p- IV. . P- 247. fig- It Martial, Lib. IX, Epig. 28, V. 12. Fig. ,. Fig- 2. PHALLIC FIBUL/E. AN TI-APHRODIS/ACS. 143 virtue and self-denial ; they are even reported to have knelt down, and, in that humiliating posture, to have kissed the pre- putial ring, no doubt with the vain hope of thereby obtaining indulgences. In some places, these martyrs fasten their fibula with a lock, the key of which they deposit with the magistrate of the town or village. But, nature insisting upon her rights, is often too strong for this self-violence, nor can desire, or the not- to-be-mistaken sympton of it, be opposed, or even pre- vented, from being gratified; and since the lock, which obstructs the extremity of the prepuce only, cannot hinder a kind of erection, nor, indeed, of effusio.i of the seminal fluid, it cannot do more than oppose the introduction of the male organ into the receptacle destined for it. Another description of fakirs were formerly to be seen in India, and, especially, in its southern peninsula, whose custom it was to traverse the country in a state of nudity, and who had been rendered impotent by the following regimen. The children destined for this penitential state are taken away from their parents at the age of six or seven yedrs, and made to eat, daily, a quantity of the young leaves of a tree called Mairkoissie. At first, the dose given them is not larger than a filbert. This regimen must be persisted in until the party reaches the age of five-and-twenty years, the dose being increased till, at the max- imum, it is as large as a duck's egg. During all this time, the devotee is subjected to no other regimen, except a light purge, once in six months, by means of Kadoitkaie. or the black miro- bolan. Although rendered completely impotent by this mode of treatment, so far from their physical strength and beauty of form being diminished or deteriorated thereby, they are, on the contrary, improved by it ; the enjoyment of constant good health is likewise almost an invariable consequence. 144 ///. APHRODISIACS AND Infibulation Is not confined to the male sex exclusively, for it \ is practised on girls and women in India, Persia, and the East. generally, and most commonly consists in joining together the I female sexual organ, or closing the labia of the vagina by a I suture made with waxed thread, a small aperture being left for I the egress of the urine and the menstrua. Linschet witnessed the operation at Pegu, as did also Schultz, , Brown saw it performed, at Darfour, on females from eleven to I twelve years of age. • At the time of marriage, a cut of the I bistouri dissevers the parts which have been closed by the efTects 1 of the suture. Sometimes jealousy contents itself by passing a ring through the parts. Women, as well as girls, are subjected to this disgusting operation, the only difference being diat the ring of the latter cannot be removed, while that of the former has a kind of lock, the key of which is in the husband's posses- sion. Pallas informs us that the beautiful nation of the Tcher- kesses, or Circassians carefully preserve the virginity of their girls by means of a leathern girdle, or rather corslet made of skin, and sewn immediately upon the naked body. The hus- , band alone has the right of severing this corslet, which he does, on die nuptial night. When the violation of virgin chastity and conjugal fidelity ] became more frequent, fathers and husbands had recourse, even I in Europe, to a mechanical contrivance for the purpose of pre- 1 serving intact the honour of the family. This was a kind of ] laadlock, which shut up all access to the seat of voluptuousness. The invention is attributed to one Franceso di Carrera, imperial judge of Padua, who lived about the close of the I5thl century. The machine itself was called the Girdle of Chaslily. Francesco's acts of cruelty brought him to the scaffold, where • Travels in Africa and Egypl. ANTI-APHRODISIA CS. 1 45 he was strangled in 1405, by a decree of the Senate of Venice. One of the principal accusation! brought against him was the employment of the Girdle of Chastity, for his mistresses, and it is said by Misson* that a box filled with these articles was for a long time preserved in the palace of St. Mark, at Venice. Rabelais speaks of these girdles, which he calls Ceiniures d la Bergamasque, " Nay," says he, Pantagruel, " may that Nick in the dark cellar, who hath no white in his eye, carry me quiet away with him, if, in that case, whenever 1 go abroad from the palace of my domestic residence, I do not, with as much circum- spection as they use to ring mares in our country, to keep them from being saillied by stoned horses, clap a Bergamesco lock upon my wife." Brantome has the following notice of these chastity preservers. " Des temps du roi Henri il yeut un cer- tain Quinquallier qui apporte une douzaine de certains engins \ la foire de St. Germain pour brider le cas des femmes. Ces sortes de cadenas estoient en usage k Veiiise des devant I'annee 1522, estoient faites de fer et centuroient comme une ceinture, et venoient a se prendre par le bas, et se fermer a clef, si subtilement faites, qu'il n'estoit pas possible que la femme en estant bridge und fois, s'en peust jamais pr^valoir pour ce doux plaisir, n'ayant que quelques petits trous menus pour ser- vir a pisser. f An endeavour was made to introduce these Bemasco pad- locks into France during the reign of Henry II., and a shop was opened by an Italian at the fair of St. Germain, where tliey were publicly sold, and in such numbers, that the French gallants, • " There (in the arsenal) are also various whimsical bolts and locks with which he (Carrera) used to keep his concubines confined. Travels in Italy. See The World, vol. 18, p. 154. t Brantome, Dames Galantes, torn iii,, p. 13S. U 146 ///. APHRODISIACS AND becoming alarmed, threatened to throw the vendor into the Seine, if he did not pack up his merchandise and decamp, which he immediately did for fear that the menace might be put in execution. Voltaire describes the Cadenas as originating with Pluto, who, jealous of his wife Proserpine, was advised : Qu'un cadenas, de la structare nouvelle Fut le garant de sa fidelite, A la vertu par la force asservie, Plus ne seral'amant favoris^. En un moment, feux, enclumes, fourneaux Sont pr^par^s aux gouffres infernaux ; Tisiphone, de ces lieux, serruriere, Au cadenas met la main, la premiere, Elle I'acheve et des mains de Pluton Proserpine requt ce triste don, Or ce secret aux enfers invente Chez les humains t6t apr^s fut portc Et depuis ce temps dans Venise et dans Rome II n'est pddant, bourgeois, ou gentilhomme Qui pour garder I'honneur de sa maison De cadenas n'ait sa provision.* This sage advice, a loud applause From all the damned assembly draws ; And straight, by order of the State, Was registered on brass by fate ; • Le Cadenas. This poem was composed by the author when he was only ] eighteen years of age, and it was occasioned by a lady who was in the cir- cumstances here spoken of. ANTI-APHRODISIACS. i. That moment, in the shades below, They anvils beat and bellows blow. Tisiphoned, the blacksmith's trade Well understood; the locks she made: Proserpina, from Pluto's hand Receiving, wore it by command. This lock, which hell could frame alone, Soon to the human race was known ; In Venice, Rome, and all about it, No gentleman or cit's without it. * We shall close this our third essay with the amusing sum- mary of anti-aphrodisiacal remedies, as given by Rabelais. " You say," said the physician Rondibilis to Panurge, "that you feel in you the pricking stings of sensuality, by which you are stirred up to venery. 1 find in our faculty of medicine, and we have founded our opinion therein upon the deliberate reso- lution and final decision of the ancient Platonics, that carnal concupiscence is cooled and quelled five several ways : — " Firstly. By the means of wine. I shall easily believe that quoth Friar John, for when I am well whittled with the juice of the grape, I care for nothing else, so I may sleep. When I say, quoth Rondibilis, that wine abateth lust, my meaning is, wine immoderately taken ; for by intemperance, proceeding from the excessive drinking of strong liquor, there is brought upon the body of such a swill-down bouser, a chillness in the blood, a slackening in the sinews, a dissipation of the gene- rative seed, a numbness and hebetation of the senses, with a perversive wryness and convulsion of the muscles, all which are •Dr Smollett's translation, Vol, XXXII. 148 ///. APHRODISIACS AND great lets and impedimeuts to the act of generation. Hence itn is that Bacchus, the god of bibbers, tipplers, and drunkards, is most commonly painted be ardless and c lad i n a woman's habJt , as a person altogether effemin ate, or like a Hbbed eunu ch. Wine, nevertheless, taken moderately, worketh quite contrary effects, as is implied by the old proverb, which saith, — That Venus taketh cold, when not accompanied by Ceres and Bacchus. * This opinion is of great antiquity as appeareth by I the testimony of Diordorus the Sicilian, and confirmed by 1 Pausanias, and it is usually held among the Lampsacians, tliat j Don Priapus was the son of Bacchus and Venus. " Secondly. The fervency of lust is abated by certain drugs, I plants herbs and roots, which make the taker cold, maleficiated, I unfit for, and unable to perform the act of generation; as hath I often been experimented by the water-lily, Heraclea, Agnus- Castus, willow-twigs, hemp-stalks, woodbine, honeysuckle, tamarisk, chastetree, mandrake, bennet keebugloss, the skin of a hippopotamus, and many other such, which, by convenient doses pro[X)rtioned to the peccant humour and constitution of ■ the patient, being duly and seasonably received within the body l — what by their elementary virtues on the one side, and peculia properties on the other, do either benumb, mortify and beclumpse j with cold, the prolific semence, or scatter and disperse the J spirits which ought to have gone along with, and conducted the ] sperm to the places destined and appointed for its receptioi or lastly, shut up, stop and obstruct the way, passages, and conduits, through which the seed should have expelled, evacu- ated, and ejected. We have, nevertheless, of those ingredients. • Sine Baccho el Cerer friget Venus. ANTI-APHRODISIACS. 149 which, being of a contrary operation, heat the blood, bind the nerves, unite the spirits, quicken the senses, strengthen the mus- cles, and thereby rouse up, provoke, excite and enable a man to the vigorous accomplishment of the feat of amorous dalliance. I have no need of those, quoth Panurge, God be thanked and you, my good master. Howsoever, I pray you, take no excep- tion or offence at these my words ; for what I have said was not out of any ill-will I did bear to you, the Lord, he knows. Thirdly. The ardour of lechery Is very much subdued and mated by frequent labour and continual toiling. For by pain- ful exercises and laborous working so great a dissolution is brought upon the whole body, that the blood which runneth alongst the channels of the veinthereof for the nourishment and alimentation of each of its members, had neither time, leisure, nor power to afford the seminal resudation or superfluity of the third concoction, which nature most carefully reserves for the conservation of the individual, whose preservation she more heedfully regardeth than the propagation of the species and the multiplication of human kind. Whence It is that Diana is said to be chaste, because she is never idle, but always busied about hunting. For the same reason was a camp, or leaguer of old called— Castrum,* as if they would have said — Castum ; because the soldiers, wrestlers, runners, throwers of the bar, and other such like athletic champions, as are usually seen in a military clrcumvallation, do incessantly travail and turmoil, and are in a perpetual stir and agitation. To this purpose, also, Hippo- crates writeth in his book, Dc Acre, Aqua et Locis .—That In ■ " Caslrum guast Cas/um, Castia," says Isidorus in his Etymologies, Lib. IX., " sunt ubi miles steterit : dicta autem, castra, quasi casta, eo quod ibi cas- iraretur libido." A caUU from (aslraling o/lusl. ISO ///. APHRODISIACS AND his time there were people in Scythia as impotent as eunuchs in the discharge of a venerean exploit ; because that, without any cessation, pause or respite, they were never from off horseback, or otherwise, assidously employed in some troublesome and molesting drudgery. On the other part, in opposition and repugnancy hereto, the philosophers say, That idleness is the motlier of luxury. When it was asked Ovid, Why v^gisthus became an adulterer ? he made no other answer than this, Because he was idle. • Who were able to rid the world of loitering and idleness might easily disappoint Cupid f of all his designes, aims, engines and devices and so disable and appal him, that his bow, quiver, and darts should from thenceforth be a mere needless load and burthen to him ; for that it could not then lie in his power to strike or wound any of either sex with all the arms he had. He is not, I believe so expert an archer as that he can hit the cranes flying in the air, or yet the young stags skipping through the thicket, as the Parthians knew well how to do; that is to say, people moiling, stirring, and hurrying up and down, restless and with- out repose. He must have those hushed, still, quiet, lying at a stay, lither and full of ease, whom he is able to pierce with all his arrows. In conformation thereof, Theophrastus being asked on a time, What kind of beast or thing he judged a toyish, wan- ton love to be? he made answer, That it was a passion of idle and sluggish spirits, -f- From which pretty description of tick- ling-tricks, that of Diogenes, the Cynic, was not very discrepant when he defined lechery — The occupation of folk destitute of all • Quffiritur i^gystus quare sit (actus adulter In promptu causa est : desidiosus. — De Remed. Amoris. f " Otia si toUas, periere Cupidinis artes." ANTI-APHRODISIACS, 15' I other occupation. For this cause the Sicyonian sculptor Canachus, * being desirous to give us to understand that slowth, drowsiness, neghgence, and laziness, were the prime guardians and governesses of ribaldry, made the statue of Venus, not standing, as other stone-cutters had used to do, but sitting. Fourthly. The tickling priclcs of incontinency are blunted by an eager study ; for from thence proceedeth an incredible reso- lution of the spirits, that oftentimes there do not remain so many behind as may suffice to push and thrust forwards the generative resudation to the places thereto appropriated, and therewithal inflate the cavernous nerve, whose office is to ejacu- late the moisture for the propagation of human progeny. Lest you should think it is not so, be pleased but to contemplate a little the form, fashion, and carriage of a man exceeding earnestly set upon some learned meditation and deeply plunged therein, and you shall see how all the arteries of his brains are stretched forth, and bent like the string of a cross-bow, the more promptly, dexterously and copiously to suppeditate, fur- nish and supply him with store of spirits, sufficient to replenish and fill up the ventricles, seats, tunnels, mansions, receptacles and cellules of common sensc^of the imagination, apprehen- sion, and fancy — of the ratiocination, arguing, and resolution— as likewise, of the memory, recordation, and remembrance ; and with great alacrity, nimblencss, and agility, to run, pass and course from one to the other, through those pipes, wind- ings, and conduits, which to skilful anatomists are perceivable at the end of the wonderful net, where all the arteries close in a terminating point ; which arteries taking their rise and origin from the left capsule of the heart, bring, through several • See Pausanias's "Corinthians." 152 ///. APHRODISIACS AND circuits, ambages, and anfractuosities, the vital spirits, to sub- tilize and refine them in the a;therial purity of animal spirits. Nay, in such a studiously meditating, musing person, you may espy so extravagant raptures of one, as it were out of himself, that all his natural faculties for that time will seem to be sus- pended from each their proper charge and office, and his ex- terior senses to be at a stand. In a word, you cannot choose than think, that he is by an extraordinary ecstacy quite trans- ported out of what he was or should be ; and that Socrates did not speak improperly when he said. That philosophy was nothing else but a meditation upon death. This possibly is the reason why Democritus* deprived himself of the sense of see- ing, prizing, at a much lower rate, the loss of his sight, than the diminution of his contemplation which he had frequently found disturbed by the vagrant flying-out strayings of hi; unsettled and roving eyes, f Therefore is it that Pallas, thi goddess of wisdom, tutoress and guardianess of such as art diligently studious and painfully Industrious, is and hath beei still accounted a virgin. l"he Muses upon the same considera- tion are esteemed perpetual maids : and the Graces, for tht same reason, have been held to continue in a sempitema pudicity. I remember to have read that Cupid, f on a time, being, asked by his mother Venus, why he did not assault and set upon the Muses, his answer was, that he found them so fair, so ■ Vide Cicero, lib. V., Tusc. Questions and Plutarch's Treatise of Curiosity. It must, however, be observed, that this story is wholly incredible, inasmuch as the same writers affirm thai DeTnocritus employed his leisure in writing books and in dissecting; the bodies of animals, neither of which could very well be effected without the eyes. t In Lucian, in the Dialogue entitled — " Venus and Cupid." ANTI-APHRODISIACS. 153 neat, so wise, so learned, so modest, so discreet, so courteous, so virtuous, and so continually busied and employed, — one in the speculation of the stars, — another in the supputation of num- bers, — the third in the dimension of geometrical quantities, — tlie fourth in the composition of heroic poems, — the fifth in the jovial interludes of a comic strain, — the sixth in the stately gravity of the tragic vein, — the seventh in the melodious dis- position of musical airs, — the eighth in the completest manner of writing histories and books on all sorts of subjects, and — the ninth in the mysteries, secrets, and curiosities of all sciences, faculties, disciplines and arts whatsoever, whether liberal or mechanic, — that approaching near unto them he unbent his bow, shut his quiver, and extinguished his torch, through mere shame and fear that by mischance he might do them any hurt or pre- judice. Which done, he thereafter put off the fillet wherewith his eyes were bound, to look them in the face, and to hear their melody and poetic odes. There took he the greatest pleasure in the worlJ.. that many times he was transported with their beauty and pretty behaviour, and charmed asleep by their harmony, so far was he from assaulting them or 'interrupting their studies. Under this article may be comprised what Hippocrates wrote in the afore-cited treatise concerning the Scythians, as also that in a book of his intituled. Of Breeding and Production, where he hath affirmed all such men to be unfit for generation as have their parotid arteries cut — whose situation is behind the ears — for the reason given already, when I was speaking of the resolution of the spirits, and of that spiritual blood, whereof the arteries are the sole and projier receptacles ; and that likewise he doth maintain a large portion •54 ///. APHRODISIACS AND of the parastatic liquor to issue ani descend from the brains 1 and backbone. Fijthly. By the too frequent reiteration of the act of venery. There did I wait for you, quoth Pamirge, and shall willingly apply it to myself, whilst any one that pleaseth may, for me, make use of any of the four preceding. That is the very same thing, quoth Friar John, which Father Scyllion, • Prior of St. Victor, at Marseilles, calleth maceration and taming of the flesh. I am of the same opinion, and so was the hermit of Saint Rade- gonde, a little above Chinon ; for, quoth he, the hermits of The- baide can no way more apdy or expediently macerate and bring down the pride of their bodies, daunt and mortify their lecherous sensuality, or depress and overcome the stubbornness and rebel- lion of the flesh, than by dufhng and fanfreluching five and I twenty or thirty times a day." • The story itself is the same as that related by Pog'gio (Bracciolini) of a ' hermit of Pisa. " Eremita," says he, " qui Pisis morabatur, tempore Petri J Gambacurtee. meretricem noctu in suam ce lulan dcduxit, vig^siesque ea nocte malieretn cognovit : semper cum moveret clunes, ut crimen (ugeret luxuri», vulgaribus verbis dicens : ' domafi, came catlizeJla ; ' hoc est, doraa te, r L ( :^'i<' I